Bars Can't Hold Us
by Laura of Maychoria
Summary: Kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured for information, Hunk and Lance and Keith have nothing but each other to rely on. They need to stay alive, stay hopeful, and get out. With a little help from the blue lion, that's exactly what they're going to do.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Hello! This fic is part of the Primary Paladins Big Bang, organized by voltronbigbang on tumblr. It is complete. I'll be posting a chapter a day until it's all up. It's about 57,000 words total, just so you know what you're getting into.

This fic was entirely written in November and the first week of December last year, so it is not Season 2 compliant. There are plot points here that would be voided by some things we found out in that season, so this is a slight AU. I couldn't change it without rewriting basically the entire thing, so it is what it is.

I have two marvelous artists working with me on this story, tsmdraws and propansexyaul. My beta was letzteslied. Ff.n does not allow me to include images in the post, but the art will be on AO3. You can also find links on my tumblr, also maychorian, with the tag bchu.

I have a music playlist for this fic as well! It is not spoilery, since I used it more for setting the mood while I was writing. I listened to it a lot. It is also linked on AO3 in the notes there.

This story contains violence, torture, and a pretty large amount of blood. Most of the actual torture is offscreen. The story is very much focused on Hunk and Lance and Keith supporting each other and doing everything they can to protect each other, even in the extreme circumstances they find themselves in. But it's a hard R, and there is one scene in particular that is a bit disturbing. I will put a specific trigger warning on that chapter, but if you are particularly sensitive or have psychological triggers, you might want to skip this fic.

Thank you for reading! This has been the work of months, and I hope you enjoy.

* * *

 **Bars Can't Hold Us  
(Prisons Can't Stop Us, Chains Can't Slow Us Down)**

"I'll kill them. I'll _kill_ them!" That was Lance's voice, raw, all but screaming.

"You won't," Keith's voice, rough too, but lower. Calmer. Since when was Keith the calm one? The situation had to be completely horrible and screwed-up if that was true.

"I will," Lance snarled with a savagery in his tone that Hunk had never heard from him before. It sent a shiver down his spine, distinctly unpleasant. And painful. Why was it painful? "I swear I will."

"You won't. You can't." Keith, still reasonable. "The cuffs..."

"I don't care. When we leave here..."

"When?"

 _"When."_ The harshest snarl yet. A modulation in Lance's voice, a vibration of the floor like he was pacing back and forth, unable to be still. "When we leave here, they're all _dead."_

Keith hummed, but he didn't disagree. "You need to calm down. Hunk..."

That was him. Were they looking at him? Hunk groaned. He tried to open his eyes. It didn't work.

But there was an instant clattering that echoed off the walls, a rush of air, and a warm presence at Hunk's side. He heard Lance's breath, rough and uneven. His knee pressed into Hunk's side, and Hunk felt it shake. A hand landed on his chest, light as a tiny, trembling bird.

"Hunk? Buddy?" Still an edge of anger under his tone, of rage and fury, but Lance had tamped it down as soon as he saw Hunk stir. Tenderness overlaid it, fierce concern. Why was he so worried?

Hunk tried again to open his eyes. The flesh around them felt swollen and sticky. Why? He became aware of a throbbing in his skull. His face. His whole body. Did he catch the flu? Some kind of horrible Space Flu that had laid him out flat, knocked him unconscious, and scared Lance enough to make him savage?

A breath sighed out of Lance's mouth, and he slumped at Hunk's side. "Okay, okay. You're waking up. That's good. It's okay, buddy. You don't have to open your eyes if you don't want to. It's not going to be anything nice to look at, anyway."

Hunk frowned, his eyebrows knitting together. Of course it would be nice. He would be looking at Lance, wouldn't he? That was always nice. He tried again, and this time he managed to open his left eye a sliver. It hurt. His eye, the flesh around it, even the orbital bone beneath the skin.

But he could see Lance, so it was worth it. Lance had moved so he was directly in Hunk's limited line of sight. His face was drawn and anxious. There was a bruise on his cheek, a cut on his forehead. His eyes were watery. Hunk frowned harder. The wall behind him...

Huh. That didn't look like the Castle of Lions. The wall was rough and dark instead of white and smooth, dimly lit by a light source Hunk couldn't see. "Wh're'r we?" Hunk slurred. His lips felt fat and sluggish. He felt slow and heavy and buried under the weight of sleep. Sleep? Had he been asleep? Maybe unconscious.

Probably unconscious. His brain was still sputtering, struggling to turn over, but he was starting to piece the clues together.

Lance looked even more worried. "Do you not remember?" The rage rose again, sparking in his eyes. "Did they hit your head that hard?"

Hunk didn't feel like moving his lips again, but he had to. "They?"

Movement caught his eye. Keith moved up beside Lance, leaning in so Hunk could see him. He looked worried, though not as overwrought as Lance. "Wow, they really did a number on you." He sounded impressed, the way he did when viewing a punching bag that Shiro had obliterated. Hunk knew it was the fighter in Keith, appreciating the work of another fighter in a distant, almost professional way. It didn't bother him, but Lance was not so easygoing.

Lance's lip twisted, and he threw Keith a glare. "You sound like you're admiring a job well done."

"I am not!" Keith pouted and crossed his arms over his chest. "I could never admire anyone who did something like that to Hunk. It's just...kind of impressive."

"I can't _believe..."_

Hunk moaned. Usually it would fall to him to mediate when Keith and Lance got like this, but he didn't feel up to it right now. It might be awhile before he could do it again.

That moan did the trick, though. The hostility fled away from Lance's face, replaced with overwhelming worry again. He leaned in toward Hunk and very gently patted his chest. "Sorry, sorry. We won't fight. It was stupid anyway. Just rest, okay? You don't have to do anything. It's fine."

Hunk released a muffled whine and let his eye slip shut again. Whatever was happening to him, whatever was going on, he was glad Lance was with him. It seemed to take monumental effort, but he lifted his hand and slid it up to his chest so he could tangle his fingers with Lance's. Lance latched on immediately, gripping tight and desperate.

Hunk lay still and let himself catalogue what was going on with his body. It was all he could just to hold Lance's hand. Lance sat there quietly, supporting him, though fear and anger continued to radiate from him like a heatless sun.

Why did everything hurt so much? Hunk shifted his shoulders, felt the ache and stretch. Now that he was thinking more objectively, it didn't feel that bad. He was bruised up, probably scratched and cut, too, but nothing felt broken. Nothing felt deep. His face was swollen and painful, but faces always swelled up a lot. He no doubt looked horrific, explaining Lance's worry, and he wasn't happy with his situation, but it all felt superficial.

Mostly, anyway. Mostly superficial. Mostly minor wounds. Stuff he could brush off. Forget. If he tried hard enough, he would probably be able to convince himself of that, eventually.

So why did he feel so sluggish and slow? A bad hit to the head, like Lance thought? His head hurt, but no specific place hurt more than the rest. He wasn't nauseated, either, which was a normal symptom of concussion for him. No, it wasn't the outside of his head that hurt the most. It was...

The inside. Hunk frowned, eyes still pasted shut, as he tried to figure it out. He couldn't remember where they were and how they'd gotten here. And he couldn't remember getting beaten up. Why couldn't he remember? It was like his brain was...raw.

Scraped out. He felt scraped out and empty. Not his body. His head. Hunk's gut lurched, something like nausea finally rising. It wasn't sickness, though, that he felt now. It was terror, a ball of cold fear taking up residence in his stomach.

They...whoever they were...they had scooped out his memory.

Hunk opened his eyes again, as wide as he could, and he looked at Lance. He still couldn't see well, vision blurry and dim, but at least he managed to crack both eyelids this time. "Lance..." His voice was shaking.

Lance sat up, fingers tightening around Hunk's. He tried to smile, but it didn't quite work. "Yeah, buddy? I'm here."

Hunk tried to swallow. It hurt. Everything hurt. "Wh...where are we?"

The corners of Lance's mouth turned downward. He looked miserable. "You really can't remember?"

Hunk swallowed again. It burned his throat. He rocked his head from side to side, once. Little explosions went off inside his skull. "I can't remember," he whispered.

Lance drew a shuddery breath. He brought his other hand over to hold Hunk's as well. For the first time, Hunk could see him well enough to see that he wasn't wearing any of his usual outfits. Neither his paladin armor, nor their civilian clothes, nor anything they had picked up on their travels. Whatever Lance was wearing, it looked sheer, almost silky, a soft turquoise blue rather than the usual deep or bright shades Lance favored. The pattern didn't quite match anything Hunk had seen before, either, little cuts on the shoulders sewn together in a triangular pattern, asymmetrical half sleeves, some kind of insignia over the left breast.

The insignia sparked something. Hunk's left eye twitched, almost wincing shut again, but he forced it wide. "Wait, the... The Malkordans?"

Some of the worry instantly slid away from Lance's face, and he slumped in relief. "Thank God," he murmured. "You do remember. Something, anyway."

"We were...negotiating," Hunk said slowly, trying to figure it out. "They're one of the only free races still trying to wage war back against the Galra instead of hunkering down and defending their own planet. We...we came down to tour a military facility while Allura negotiated with their government. They wanted to meet the Paladins of Voltron."

"Yeah." That was Keith. He leaned into Hunk's line of vision to join them for storytime. "You remember their hangars? They're more technologically advanced than Earth, but a lot of their ships and procedures felt familiar. Looked like things we have at home."

Hunk made a noise of agreement. "The hangars, yeah. It was... It felt kind of eerie. Like we were almost home, but not quite there. And of course the Malkordans themselves..."

Lance's mouth twisted in that sad attempt at a smile again. "Like everything else on the planet. So close to home, but not quite there."

"They're...taller than human norm. Gray skin, mostly blue or black eyes. Like beetles. And their fingernails...like they're made of steel. Or are those implants? Everyone we met seemed to have claws, but maybe that's just because everyone we met was in the military..."

Lance choked out a watery laugh and clutched Hunk's hand harder. "Hunk, you Mensa maniac. Give your big brain a rest, c'mon. You'll break something."

Hunk blinked, but he couldn't stop. "And their teeth... Sharp. A little jagged. All the way back. Carnivore species. Civilized now but... Their history must be savage. Maybe that's why they've been able to hold out against the Galra for so long. They'll do things other races won't."

Keith let out a bitter chuckle. "You got that right."

Hunk blinked. His head felt too heavy for his neck. "That's..." He felt the words in his mouth, testing them out. "That's why we're here."

Lance nodded. His mouth stretched in a furious grimace for a moment, but he forced it down, made himself settle. "Got it in one, big guy. Did you remember, or did you figure it out by logic?"

Hunk made a noise through his nose. It wasn't the most pleasant thing he'd ever done to himself. His nose was definitely swollen, though it didn't feel broken. "I logicked that one."

"Of course you did." Lance let go of the back of his hand so he could pat it. "Do you want us to tell you what happened, or do you wanna wait and see if the memories come back on their own? I honestly don't know which one would be worse for you."

Hunk let his head roll back so he was staring at the ceiling. "I don't know. I think..." He closed his eyes. He could feel something in that center of raw, pulsing soreness that was his brain. It was like...a spark across a filament of wire, connecting two elements. Or two branches from side-by-side trees slowly growing to reach each other. "I think they might come back. Whatever they did to me... It doesn't seem permanent."

"What they did to you?" Keith's voice got closer as he shifted, leaning over Hunk to look his face. Outrage pushed behind his voice, though he was trying to keep it under control. "What are you talking about? It's not just because they hit your head too many times?"

"Mm, no. I don't think so." Hunk opened his eyes. The ceiling above him was dark and rough, too. Were they underground or something? The military barracks he remembered had seemed standard, made of steel and wood, or at least the local equivalent. "This doesn't feel like a concussion. It hurts but… It's different."

He drew a breath. He didn't want to say this, but he had to. Lance and Keith needed to know what they were dealing with here. "I think they...I think they did something to my brain. It feels...scraped out. And given that we're in a universe full of magic and advanced technology… It's possible, right? Has to be."

Lance made a distressed noise and held Hunk's hand harder, as much for his own comfort as Hunk's. "You really think they could do that?"

Hunk nodded, slow and ponderous. "But I don't know why. What possible reason could they have to beat me up, then make me forget it?"

The three of them were silent for a time, trying to sort through a disturbing list of possibilities. Or lack of them. It didn't make much sense, but whatever was going on here, it seemed ominous and terrible.

Lance shifted from side to side and pressed himself even closer to Hunk's body. "Maybe...maybe it was a test."

That made sense. It made too much sense.

Hunk's lips felt fat and uncooperative again, but he forced the words out. "If...if we've been kidnapped by the Malkordans, our potential allies, and they're trying to get something from us, but they still want to make an alliance with Voltron..."

Keith's breath was too fast. "They'll keep us locked up for as long as they want. Do whatever they want to us. Then, when they're done... They'll make us forget."

Lance gulped, the sound thick and choked in his throat. "The others must not even know. They can't know. They've been told that we were taken by the Galra, or anti-government rebels or something. Anything. When the Malkordans are done with us, they'll erase it all and give us back to our team, and no one will ever know. At least, that must be their plan. As long as the test on Hunk works."

Keith made a disgusted sound. "That's why they had us all sleeping in separate rooms. So they could grab us at their leisure and the rest of the team wouldn't know."

Separate rooms... Hunk could feel his synapses trying to fire. A vague memory rose at that, the military barracks where they had been staying, each of the paladins being ushered into officer's quarters, told that they were high-ranking official visitors who must have the best the Malkordans had to offer. Sumptuous furnishing, luxurious bedding, individual pajama sets hanging in the closets.

The memory sharpened. It had been fun at first. Hunk and Pidge and Lance had treated it like an out-of-town field trip, the kind where you had to stay at a hotel overnight in between visits to museums and art festivals. They had all gathered in Lance's room to play with the weird board games he found in his cupboards, laughing and talking and enjoying the food service, wondering if Shiro's room might even have a liquor cabinet...

Afterward, they had split up to go back to their own rooms to sleep. Maybe they shouldn't have. Maybe they all should have had a sleepover in Lance's room, like they had joked about doing. His bed had certainly been big enough for three people. If they'd done that, would Hunk and Lance still be free, or would the Malkordans have grabbed Pidge along with them?

Hunk still couldn't remember the moment he was grabbed, but Keith's supposition made sense. They must have been split up that way to make it easy for their captors. The Malkordans could have even put something in the air to make the three of them groggy and unable to react quickly when they were taken. But why them and not Shiro or Pidge? Hunk was thinking more clearly now, but not clearly enough to figure it all out.

The way he couldn't remember anything after hanging out with Lance and Pidge... That probably made sense, though. Those must have been the specific memories they had wanted to take from Hunk's mind, if this really was a test. For some reason their technique had hazed over earlier memories, too, at least for a while, but those were coming back now. Everything after he went to sleep last night (was it just last night?) was gone.

Hunk turned his head to look at Lance again. "Hey, could you help me sit up?"

Lance frowned. "I don't think you should."

"C'mon." Hunk smiled. It was rare to see this protective side of Lance, but he did like it. It seemed to come out most often when Hunk was anxious or under the weather, or if Pidge was threatened by so much as a papercut. "I'm okay, really. I'm sore, but nothing's broken. I'm getting tired of lying here."

"Well, that's too bad. You can't see your own face, man. You're...you're a mess. You need to rest."

"I want to sit up. I need to think."

"You can think lying down."

"I'll think better sitting up."

Lance blew out an exasperated breath and squeezed his hand. _"Hunk."_

Hunk squeezed him back. _"Lance."_

Keith was fed up. "Ugh! Would you two shut up? If you won't help him..." A glare at Lance. "...I will."

He moved over to Hunk's other side and held out a hand. Hunk took it, palm wrapping tight around Keith's steady pressure, and Keith got his other hand under his shoulder to lift him up. Before he started though, Hunk gave one more look to Lance.

"Babe." Soft, this time. The name they only used when they very badly needed the other to listen and pay attention to what they needed. "C'mon. Be with me on this."

As usual when Hunk did this, Lance all but melted into a puddle. His eyes went liquid and his grip on Hunk's hand went from tight and demanding to soft and supportive. "Not fair," he muttered. "You know what that does to me."

Hunk just smiled.

After a moment, Lance blew out a breath and rolled his eyes. "Fine! You know I will."

He shifted his grip on Hunk's hand, then got his free arm under his shoulder, mirroring Keith on the other side. "Okay. Ready? Go." He and Keith both pulled, and Hunk strained his muscles to help. His abdomen and back ached and burned, but it was nothing deep. Sitting up didn't feel good, but he could do it.

Once he was up, Keith and Lance both helped him shuffle and scoot until he was leaning against the hard, rough wall. Keith had been nabbed fully dressed, that old habit he had of sleeping in his clothes in unfamiliar places rising again. He took off his jacket and put it on the floor for Hunk to sit on, shielding him somewhat from the chill of the cell. Of course Hunk was wearing Malkordan pajamas, too, pale yellow in his case.

Lance nestled up against his side, pulling their clasped hands to rest in his lap. Hunk was already slumping, but with this invitation he slumped down yet further and let his head fall sideways to rest on Lance's chest. Lance's pajama shirt was too thin and flimsy for this environment, but it felt nice on Hunk's sore ear and cheek.

Lance put his other arm around Hunk's shoulders, hand resting on his bicep. Like this, Hunk felt Lance's presence all around him. It felt like home, even in this strange and awful situation. Lance was warm, and Hunk could hear his heartbeat. He felt his eyelids drooping already. But no. He couldn't fall asleep. He had to figure this out.

Sitting up like this, even with his narrowed vision and fuzzy mind, Hunk could see the room they were in a lot more clearly. Keith sat cross-legged in front of him, a worried frown on his face as he watched Hunk and Lance curl up around each other. The room was definitely a prison cell. The single door had a barred window in the upper half, and there were no other windows that Hunk could see, which strengthened his earlier guess that they might be underground.

The walls and floor seemed to be made of some kind of concrete, but they were darker than Hunk might have expected. Maybe they used different materials than the stuff back on Earth. He caught a glimpse of a cot in a corner of the room, but there was just one. For all three of them? The room was relatively small. Maybe it was only supposed to house one prisoner, normally. Another corner had a commode in the floor, universally recognizable. No privacy screen or anything.

Yeah, the whole thing was very reminiscent of Earth. Hunk had never been to prison on his home planet, but he had watched TV. He knew what they looked like.

Why were they keeping all three of them together? Hunk wasn't complaining, but it didn't quite make sense from what he knew of the Malkordans so far. They were a brutal race, and brutally efficient, too. If they had captured the three of them with the intent of gaining something from them, it would make more sense to keep them isolated from each other, even in different wings. That way they wouldn't be able to communicate with and comfort each other.

Though Hunk couldn't remember being beaten up, he presumed that it had been part of an interrogation. Hunk wanted to believe that he hadn't told them anything, even if he couldn't remember for sure. He had to have been able to hold out through a simple beating, especially one that had only done superficial damage like this. If they were trying to break him, trying to make him give up information about Voltron or the Castle of Lions or something like that, they weren't going to stop at one attempt.

So they were going to try again. And they would definitely speed things up if they kept Hunk away from Lance and Keith. Like this, leaning on Lance's chest, listening to his heartbeat, feeling the rise and fall of his breath, Hunk felt himself growing steadier, stronger. And Keith was here, too, his eyes dark with sympathy. Hunk would never break, not while he knew that his friends were waiting. The thought was a fire in his chest, in his belly, warming him from the inside despite the uncomfortable coolness.

Unless... This was all hypothetical, and Hunk didn't want to think it yet, but maybe he wasn't the target. Maybe they hadn't asked him any questions at all. Maybe they had just beaten him.

Why would they do that, if so? The Malkordans seemed too focused and efficient to beat up a prisoner just for the sake of sadism. They had to have a reason for all of this. But if Hunk wasn't the one they were truly trying to get information from...

Lance. The Malkordans had been observing all of the paladins carefully from the moment they arrived on planet. They would have been able to see how close Lance and Hunk were. They weren't shy about touching in public, and they had smiles that were only meant for each other. And Lance, while he was a great guy and very strong in his own way, did not have quite the same fortitude as Hunk. If they wanted to get at Lance, weaken his defenses, shake him up and rattle his convictions, the best way to do that would be to abuse Hunk.

Or maybe... Maybe the Malkordans thought it would work on both of them. They could beat up Hunk to get at Lance, and beat up Lance to get at Hunk. At the thought, Hunk snuggled his head a little harder into Lance's chest and breathed in deep, trying to take in his scent. He was tense and trembling, and he knew Lance could feel it.

No.

No. They had to get out. That was all. It didn't matter what these creeps wanted, what they were trying to accomplish by grabbing the three of them and subjecting them to this. They were going to escape, no matter what. And they were going to do it before any of them laid a finger on Lance.

Lance lifted the hand he'd been resting on Hunk's arm and started combing through his hair, instead. He worked gently through the tangles, the matted areas left behind by sweat that had since dried. Lance was good at this. It was incredibly soothing, and Hunk badly wanted to close his eyes and drift off. Which was Lance's plan, no doubt. He thought he was so sneaky, sometimes.

Hunk huffed out a breath against Lance's chest and rolled his head over to stare fixedly at the door. "That feels good," he mumbled.

Lance hummed deep his chest, low and satisfied. "I know."

"I'm not gonna fall asleep, though."

Lance snorted. "Yes, you will. My fingers are magic."

"I know I've said that in the past..."

"More than once."

"...More than once," Hunk amended agreeably. "But not this time. We have to figure this out. We have to escape. Right away."

"I'm not disagreeing with you," Keith said. "But what do you think we've been trying to do ever since we woke up in this rotten place?"

Hunk squinted at him. Keith flushed. "...Oh, right. You can't remember, can you?"

Hunk grunted. "I remember arriving here on Malkord. The private rooms. Hanging out with Lance and Pidge before we went to sleep. But everything after that is blank. I think their test worked."

Even if it hadn't, even if the memories came back later, Hunk was not going to say it aloud. The Malkordans were no doubt monitoring this cell, listening to every word they said to each other. If they knew that the memory erasure hadn't worked, what was their alternative to keep Allura and the others from finding out what they'd done?

They'd have to kill them. That was the only other option. Hunk shuddered.

Not gonna happen.

Keith's nose twisted. "The cell is solid. Stone everywhere. We're not gonna be able to dig our way out. When they took you away, Lance and I took turns ramming ourselves into the door. No give. And when we started to get desperate enough to almost damage ourselves..."

He hesitated, and his eyes flicked to Lance above Hunk's head. Lance heaved a sigh, shifting Hunk's head with the movement. "They activated the cuffs."

Cuffs? Hunk looked down at his and Lance's hands, still linked, resting on Lance's thigh. He hadn't noticed the bands around their wrists earlier, too occupied with other things. They were light enough that Hunk hadn't noticed their weight, but they looked solid, made of some kind of dark metal with a darker band in the middle, probably an unlit indicator light.

Hunk brought his other hand over, not without a twinge of pain in his upper arm and shoulder, and poked at the cuff. It looked kind of like the cuffs back in the castle, and like the ones that bounty hunter girl had used to tie Lance to a tree way back at the beginning. Similar in design, but probably with materials native to Malkord.

"What happened when the cuffs activated?" he asked.

Keith grimaced. "They must be magnetic or something. Drawn to the material the cell is made of. As soon as that middle indicator light turned on, the cuffs instantly slammed down on the nearest surface. And they stuck there."

Lance made a noise of disgust. "Mine just stuck to the floor. I had to kneel there, didn't have much room to maneuver." His voice went a little lighter. "Keith was stuck in a worse position, I think. One wrist was kind of high up on the wall and the other was on the floor."

"Yeah." Keith's voice was disgruntled. "It was super uncomfortable."

"Funny, though."

"Next time you should try it, then. Give us all an idiot to laugh at."

Lance shook his head and turned his attention back to Hunk. "Anyway, at least they didn't leave us that way for long. The cuffs turned off, and a voice from a speaker somewhere told us that that was a warning. Next time it'll be worse."

"They activated 'em again when they brought you back," Keith said. "So we had no chance to rush the door. When they took you they had a lot of guards with guns, kept us subdued that way, but I guess it's more efficient to use the cuffs. The door opened and a couple of guys dumped you on the floor, then left, and the cuffs turned off again."

Hunk hummed thoughtfully. Efficient, yeah. That sounded like the Malkordans. How to make things even worse for folks who were already in prison and already being subjected to torture? Restrict their movements. Cuffs that automatically welded to the wall would be a very useful method of punishment.

Okay. So first thing, as soon as Hunk had dexterity back in his fingers, he would have to figure out the cuffs and find a way to deactivate them. He wouldn't talk about it now, though, when he was too tired and sore to move. With the Malkordans monitoring the cell, the three of them would have to talk about any escape plans in sign language, or maybe English if they could find something to write with. Hunk and Lance could sign pretty well, the alphabet as well as a few common signs, but Keith had never had a reason to learn.

That was something to talk about when they got away from here. They should make sure all the paladins knew some method of sign language, and maybe Allura and Coran, too. Never knew when this sort of situation might come up again.

Hunk recognized this for the good sign that it was, the fact that he was thinking in certainties about what to do once they got out of this. Despite the direness of the situation and how uncomfortable he felt in body and mind, Hunk was not remotely broken or depressed. He was more angry than scared, though fear was definitely a shadow over his thoughts. More for Lance than for himself, though.

Maybe they had done him a favor, erasing the memory of that beating from his mind. He knew it had happened, and he still felt the effects, but it hadn't done any psychological damage to him. At least none that he could feel right now. He might even get out of here without any nightmares, which certainly would be a treat.

"Okay," Hunk said, voice already starting to slur. "I think I am gonna sleep now."

"You done thinking, Brainiac McEinstein?" Lance asked, soft and fond. His fingers kept slowly sweeping through Hunk's hair.

Hunk made a noise of agreement and let his eyes droop shut. "Yeah. We'll...talk about it later." His voice was a low mumble now, but he knew Lance still heard him. "Gonna get you outta here, babe. Not gonna let 'em do anything to you."

"Yeah." Lance curled his whole body around him a little closer, a little tighter. Hunk still felt the coldness of the wall and floor through Keith's jacket, but everywhere he touched Lance, he was warm. "You too, babe. Not again. I'll kill them first."

Hunk smiled. Such a Lance thing to say, boasting with absolutely nothing to back it up. But he heard the sincerity in his voice, his deep and very real desire for it to be true. Lance would kill to protect him. Hunk knew that, had known it for long time. He'd seen him do it, too. But it was still nice to hear.

Hunk went still against Lance's body, just resting, breathing smooth and slow. His mind was already fading, but he heard Lance's voice talking to Keith.

"See?" His voice was stuffed with pride. "I told you Hunk would come up with something. Look, he's not even worried now. Drifting off like a baby. Everything's gonna be fine."

And that was like Lance too, that utter confidence in himself, in his team, and especially in Hunk. Even when it wasn't necessarily deserved, even when the situation was dire and dark and seemingly hopeless. Especially then, it seemed.

Keith said something back that could have been an agreement, though his voice was not quite as confident as Lance's. Count on Keith to be the pessimist whenever the group needed one, or "realist" as he preferred to call himself. Didn't mean Keith wouldn't fight, though, even with his back pressed against a wall. Keith fought like a demon every single time, no matter whether or not he believed that they would win. Hunk didn't know why the Malkordans had decided to kidnap the three of them, but he really couldn't ask for two better companions to be in this mess with him.

Hunk didn't catch Keith's exact words, whatever they were. He was already asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Lance and Keith were silent for a while, listening to Hunk breathe, making sure he was fully asleep. There was a rasping noise deep in his throat that Lance didn't like, like he'd been yelling too loud and too long. He tried to angle himself in such a way that it might ease Hunk's breathing. If he shifted too far, though, Hunk's hand tightened where it had curled in a fist, clutching the bottom of Lance's tunic-like shirt. So he gave up trying to move and just sat there, holding his buddy.

When he thought it was safe, Keith made a frustrated noise and scrubbed his hands over his face. "He doesn't remember a thing. So we still don't know what they want from us."

"I think we'll find out for ourselves soon enough," Lance said grimly. "And anyway, there's really only one reason why they would go after Hunk first."

Keith tilted his head, eyes narrowing. He didn't say anything, but Lance understood the question.

He rolled his eyes, just a little. It wasn't really Keith's fault. It had taken Lance a while to figure it out, too. "Think about the three of us, our skills and specialties. We're all pilots, but you're a swordsman and close combat specialist, and I'm a sniper slash master of tactics. But Hunk... He's a mechanic. A very smart, very talented engineer. They know it, too, with all the intelligent questions he asked while we were touring the hangars."

Understanding began to dawn in Keith's eyes. "They wanted his technological expertise."

"Two guesses as to what they're interested in."

"The lions."

"That's the one."

It made sense, in retrospect. Every Malkordan they'd met had been absolutely fascinated by the Voltron lions and the way they formed into a larger whole, asking question after question. They had been disappointed that the paladins hadn't taken a lion down to greet them. The pod ship they chose to bring wasn't even a quarter as sexy. Looking back, Lance remembered the almost hungry gleam in the supreme commander's eye when he talked about the lions, and the way his face twisted when Shiro politely put him off, unwilling to give a time when he might see one in person.

Keith frowned. "Do you think he told them anything?"

"No." Lance's answer was instant, unthinking. Then he went still, considering it more carefully. "No. I don't think so. Hunk is strong, especially when he doesn't think he will be." Unconsciously, his arms tightened around Hunk's sleeping form. "He must have been so scared and overwhelmed, though. I'm...I'm kinda glad he doesn't remember."

"Yeah." Keith nodded and bent over, resting his chin on his folded hands as he stared off into a corner. "What could he even tell them, anyway? Do any of us actually understand how the lions work?"

"I don't know. I doubt even Coran knows for sure, and he's up in the castle out of reach."

Of course, of the five paladins, Hunk definitely knew the most. Pidge loved modifications and coding, but she didn't do as much with the mechanical side. Lance wasn't going to say that out loud, though. The Malkordans were no doubt listening to every word they said, and he didn't want to give them more reason to concentrate on Hunk. Would do anything to avoid that, more like.

"Besides," Lance said instead, "this has to be the most inefficient way ever to get information about a highly complex machine. Interrogate an engineer until he starts telling you stuff? Who even knows how coherent he'd be, or if he'd be able to put it into a logical order. Or even how much he'd remember, after going through trauma like the amount of hurt they would have to put on Hunk to make him talk. You'd be better off trying to hack the blueprints from the people you were trying to steal the thing from in the first place."

 _There,_ he thought with a bitter twist of his lips. _Are you listening, you sons of quiznak? Leave Hunk alone. You're violating your own principles by even pretending that this is the best way to get what you want._ And no way they would ever be able to hack anything from a system that Pidge was protecting. Lance was sure of that.

Keith grunted. He was leaning over and tapping the floor with a fingernail, a distracted and restless motion that showed how badly he wanted to escape. Enough to use his fingernails to do it. "Yeah, that's a good point."

Lance hadn't exactly been aiming his speech at Keith, but he smiled at the sincerity in the guy's voice. He should probably tell Keith that they were being monitored and not everything he said necessarily had to have a response. But this was kind of hilarious, so maybe he wouldn't.

But he went cold at Keith's next words. "Maybe they're not after information about the mechanics, then."

Lance's mind was blank. "What...what else could they want?"

Keith shrugged, still staring down at the floor as he pick pick picked away at it with his nail. "Dunno. The lions are kind of half magical, half spiritual, aren't they? Well, and half mechanical. A quarter magic? Whatever. Maybe they want information on that part. Stuff you'd never find in a blueprint."

Lance's breath stuttered for a moment, but he brought it under control. His nose scrunched up in irritation at being thrown off balance by anything Keith said, even momentarily. "Well, it's still not like Hunk or any of us are going to be able to tell them how that works. Even Coran doesn't really get that stuff, and Allura is the most magical of us all and she can't explain it either. So there's no point in asking any of us any questions at all."

Keith hummed thoughtfully. Lance hoped the Malkordans were listening.

Leave them alone. Leave all of them alone. Just wipe their memories or whatever and give them back to their team.

"Ugh." Keith finally tired of one useless activity and decided to do another one. He stopped scratching his fingernail against the dark concrete and kicked to his feet, then starting pacing the cell the way he had when they were first dropped in here. He went from corner to corner to corner, skipping the wall where Hunk and Lance sat, giving occasional glares to the completely useless cot they'd been given. It had no mattress, not even a solid surface, just an empty metal frame taking up one corner of the cell. Lance couldn't fathom why it was even in here. Just to taunt them with what they didn't have?

Lance watched Keith pace, willing himself to find it soothing, like watching fish swim in an aquarium. Keith didn't move like a fish, though. He moved like a rat in a cage, or like a Tasmanian devil Lance had seen at a zoo once. The Tasmanian devil constantly paced over certain paths in its enclosure, over and over and over every single day. So many times that the paths were worn to hard-packed dirt from what had originally been healthy, growing green grass.

This was the same. This was a creature of instinct and strength, a predator with sharp teeth shut up against its will in a space far too small for it. The sight was about as far from soothing as it was possible to get.

Lance felt his eyelid twitch, a headache building behind the eye. He put up with it for as long as he could, unwilling to take away anything that Keith found even marginally soothing in this horrible situation. Eventually Keith would get bored and sit down again, right? He had to.

But he didn't. "Would you please _stop?"_ Lance finally snapped, skipping over all of the polite requests like he'd already made them and going straight to high-pitched irritation. Repressing his urge to say something never went well for Lance. "You're driving me apples and bananas!"

Hunk whimpered at the noise and curled up into him even tighter, and Lance's heart panged with guilt. "Sorry, sorry," he murmured, voice contrite and soothing. He curled over Hunk a little tighter and pressed a kiss on the top of his head. "Sorry. Stay asleep, buddy. It's okay."

Hunk relaxed against him, uncurling slightly from the ball he'd turned into. His weight was limp and heavy on Lance's chest, in his arms, but alive and breathing and shivering in the cold, and that was the best Lance could hope for at the moment. "Sorry," he whispered again, and Hunk's hand tightened in his shirt as if in answer.

Keith had whirled at Lance's outburst, eyes fiery, ready to take him on with good ol' verbal fisticuffs. But at this his face softened, and his shoulders slumped. He wandered back over to them and sat cross-legged on the floor again, facing Lance and Hunk. He was folded half over himself with his arms in his lap, the picture of woe.

"I know I wasn't accomplishing anything," he muttered, half an explanation and half a complaint at Lance for interrupting. "But it felt better to be moving, you know?"

Lance nodded. He did know. If his arms weren't full with a sleeping, hurting Hunk, he would be inclined to pace uselessly, too. "Sorry," he muttered in return. "I'm just...on edge."

"I get it." Keith looked away, then back to Lance. "Could I ask something?"

"Sure." Lance blew out a breath and tried to relax. "Talking has to be better than watching you pace like an animal."

Keith squinted at him as if he wasn't sure if that was an insult and whether he should rise to the bait, but after a moment he let it slide. He leaned back where he sat and spread a hand, encompassing both Lance and Hunk. "Did something change between you two recently? Like, last night?"

Lance's forehead wrinkled. He had no idea where this was going. "No? Hunk and I have had a great relationship for a pretty long time."

"I know that much." Keith's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "You've always been close, but...I guess... Really close now? In the past few months? But...today was the first time I heard you call each other that. I wasn't expecting it."

"What?" Lance's wrinkles got deeper. This wasn't helping him understand the question at all. "What did we call each other? And why would you think something changed last night?"

Keith flapped his hand in frustration. "You know... _that."_

"No, Keith," Lance said as patiently as he could. "I don't know. You're going to have to spell it out for me."

Keith opened his mouth, then closed it. Astonishingly, his cheeks pinkened. Then he leaned forward, never breaking eye contact with Lance, and let the word out in an embarrassed whisper. "Babe. You called each other babe."

Lance almost burst out laughing. He stopped himself just in time, not wanting to disturb Hunk. Giggles still broke through, shaking his throat and making everything seem a bit lighter. _"That?_ That's what has your panties in a bunch?"

Keith leaned back, frowning. "I don't wear panties, Lance. Don't make fun of me."

"Right, right. Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to insult you." Lance settled down. He shook his head, still grinning widely. "We've been calling each other that for a long time, man. Just...not very often. And I guess not in public, though it's not like we did that on purpose. Special occasions? Like, we call each other a lot of pet names all the time, I'm sure you've noticed, but that one is saved for... I don't know. Serious moments."

Keith nodded slowly, his face creased in thought. "So I witnessed something private then."

"Kind of. Not that we care. You don't have to apologize or anything. What does that have to do with our relationship changing?"

Keith tilted his head to the side. "Just...you were flirting. Yesterday. With that Malkordan lieutenant."

Lance shuddered a bit at the memory. He truly, deeply regretted that now. It still didn't answer the question. "Yeah? I flirt with a lot of people."

"Yeah, well... Doesn't it bother Hunk?"

"No? I mean, not more than it bothers the rest of you. You've seen him sighing and rolling his eyes, too."

Keith shifted uncomfortably. "Okay, yeah, but I mean... Aren't you a couple?"

Oh. Oooohhh. Suddenly, this made sense. Lance smiled and relaxed against the wall, pulling Hunk in closer against him. "Oh, okay. I get it now."

Keith raised his eyebrows.

"No. No, we're not a couple. At least, not the way you're meaning."

"So you aren't...involved?"

Lance rolled his eyes. Trust Keith to be blunt ninety-five percent of the time and try his hand at subtlety the one time it didn't matter. "No, Keith. Hunk and I are not doing the do."

Keith somehow looked even more confused. "But..."

"But we hug all the time? We call each other pet names? We cuddle on the couches? We spend time with each other and make personalized presents for no reason at all? Yes, we do all of that. It's...really good. Really special. Hunk is incredibly important to me, and I'm incredibly important to him. But we're not having sex."

Keith squinted at him. "You do know that you're both...quite attractive. Right?"

Lance snorted. Softly, though. "It's not about aesthetics, man. I think Hunk is as cute and cuddly as a teddy bear, and he likes my face, too. He's said so. But that's just...not what we are to each other."

"Is there a word for what you are to each other?"

Lance was brought up short, frowning. He'd never actually thought about it. What he and Hunk had was good, really good, and they were both glad that their relationship had deepened this much since they ended up stuck in space together, fighting aliens. But they had never made any attempt to define what they were, just letting it flow, letting things fall where they would. They were both comfortable and laid back like that, and they both liked that about each other.

"I don't know. Really good friends?"

Keith wrinkled his nose at him. "This is more than really good friends. More than best friends. If even I can see that, you have to know it, too."

"Really, really, _really_ good friends? I don't know, man. I never thought it needed a label."

Keith huffed, obviously dissatisfied. Lance didn't know how to fix that for him.

He shrugged. "I don't know what else to say, dude. Hunk and me are really good friends, and yeah, I guess our friendship is a little deeper than normal. But it's still friendship. The only thing I can really say to explain it is that it's definitely not sexual, and it's definitely not romantic. I don't know. Does that help?"

Keith hesitated, then nodded slowly. "I guess. A little bit."

Lance sighed and slumped against the wall. "Sorry. I didn't expect your question to be so hard to answer."

"Neither did I." Keith chewed his lip in thought, staring at his lap, then looked up again. "So Hunk really doesn't mind when you flirt, huh?"

"Meaning he doesn't get jealous? No. He knows I still have a romantic side that needs to be fed. And if he ever got a crush on someone...or if he finally freaking _did_ anything about the crushes he already has...I wouldn't be upset either. I'd be happy. I would cheer him on."

"Do you think your relationship would change if one of you started one with someone else?"

"Maybe? I don't know. It hasn't come up. We'll figure it out when that happens, if ever. But I know that I'll always be really important to Hunk, and he'll always be really important to me, no matter what else changes. Always."

Something passed over Keith's face at that last part. Not strong enough to be jealousy. More like...longing.

Lance's heart went all mushy. Dang it. Why did it keep doing that?

"Hey, man," he said, soft now. "Can't help noticing you're starting to get some goosebumps, there."

Keith blinked, then looked down at his own arms. "Oh." He lifted his hands and rubbed them over his upper arms. Lance hadn't thought that giving up his jacket would be that much of a sacrifice for Keith, but apparently it was.

"Hunk has been shivering, too. Would you come sit with us? Just...cuddle up on the other side. It would be a big help."

"Okay." Keith didn't fight it. He moved, then settled down next to Hunk without a murmur.

They settled in for a wait. What they were waiting for, Lance wasn't sure. For Hunk to wake up, for the Malkordans to come back for them again, for something to happen. Lance was tired, deep and aching with it, but he felt too wired to sleep, his back tense, arms still clenched around Hunk's limp weight. Bad enough getting kidnapped in the first place, but did they have to go and do it in the middle of the freaking night?

He had been fast asleep when they came for him. No warning, no chance to fight back, to call an alarm. One moment he was deep in slumberland, dreaming about beautiful babes on a tropical beach with blazing white sand and blue skies and the hum of the ocean. And then he was awake, and something was pressed over his mouth and nose, cutting off his breath.

He panicked and flailed, tried to scream, but no sound made it out past the strong hand that was clamped over his face. Other hands held his arms, his legs, bearing down and pinning him to the bed. He ran out of oxygen almost immediately and slumped back, dizzy and panicked, lungs aching. He was paralyzed with terror, couldn't see anything in the still-dark room. Then he felt something small and round and cold press against his temple, and someone's breath ghosted over his face.

"This is a gun." A Malkordan voice, one he didn't recognize. The Malkordan pressed the gun harder against his temple, and Lance flinched as much as he could with all the weight holding him down. "If I lift my hand and let you breathe, you will not scream. If you scream, I will shoot you. It will not kill you, but it will hurt very much. The pain will make you lose consciousness. Now, would you like to breathe? I will lift my hand. Do not scream."

Lance blinked rapidly and tried to nod, but he couldn't move his head even that much. The Malkordan made a noise of amusement, and the hand lifted. Lance immediately sucked in a huge, wheezing breath, still panicking at the lack of air. His body convulsed, and he badly wanted to cough, but he was afraid that any sharp movement would be interpreted as an attempt to scream, so he choked it back. There were tears in his eyes, though whether from pain or fear he didn't know. Possibly both. Probably both.

"You will make no sound," the Malkordan said.

Lance nodded. They were already pulling him up, dragging him completely without effort on his part. It was terrifying to be manhandled so easily, by so many people at once. Lance had absolutely no control over this, over his own body, over anything at all. He couldn't see and he could barely breathe, his lungs were aching, and a gun was being held to his head. He had no choice but to let them do what they wanted to him.

They gagged him, just to make even more certain that he wouldn't make a sound, then put something fabric over his head, like a bag or a pouch. He could breathe through his nose, but his mouth was obstructed, and the fabric between his face and the open air made breathing feel even more difficult than it already was. Then the hands pulled him to his feet, he felt cuffs being snapped around his wrists, and his arms were pulled behind him and bound behind his back. Escape was truly impossible now.

They made him walk, blind and almost deaf and still struggling to breathe. He stumbled on bare feet, struggling to keep up with the hands that pulled his elbows and shoved at his back. Eventually he was knocked off his feet, and he thudded down on a hard surface. It began to move, and he knew he was in a vehicle.

After his initial panic died down enough to allow some space to think, Lance's primary emotion was shame. He should have been able to fight back, somehow. He had been completely unable to do anything at all. Shiro would have fought back if some strangers had tried to grab him in his sleep. Keith would have fought back, too, hair-trigger reflexes serving him even in such an extreme and unexpected situation. He would have killed some of them, if not all. Even Hunk, who was the least aggressive of the five paladins, could break out enormous reserves of power and strength when pressed. He would have done something, anything. But Lance had done nothing. He'd let them do what they wanted with him.

It made Lance's cheeks burn to think about it, and he would never, ever say it aloud, but he had been relieved when the Malkordans finally removed the bag over his head and unsnapped the restraints around his arms, then shoved him into this cell. Because here with him were Keith and Hunk, too, looking just as disoriented and terrified as Lance was. Lance didn't want them to be here, didn't want _any_ of them to be kidnapped and held prisoner by these cruel people, but at the same time, a huge wave of relief washed over him.

Not just because he wasn't alone, though Lance was incredibly, immensely grateful for that. No, he was relieved because they hadn't been able to fight off their attackers, either. Lance wasn't completely incompetent and useless, if the kidnappers had managed to get the drop on Hunk and Keith, too. He wasn't a failure for letting himself get caught and manipulated and forced, because Hunk and Keith were here with him, and they were both the farthest thing possible from failures.

It was shameful, and Lance felt bad for feeling this way. But he couldn't help it. If he could do anything, have any wish in the universe right at this moment, he would want Hunk back with Shiro and Pidge or safe in the Castle of Lions. Or home on Earth, honestly. Just... Anywhere but here, beaten and bloody and sleeping restlessly in Lance's arms. But Lance's first emotion on seeing him in this cell had not been horror or grief or anger that Hunk was being subjected to the same treatment that Lance was enduring. No, it had been relief. And Lance would never be able to forgive himself for that.

The relief hadn't lasted long, of course. When the Malkordans came in the cell and took Hunk away, it died completely. Lance and Keith had both thrown themselves at the door in a frenzy of desperation and rage, but Lance had definitely been more reckless about it. Which was weird, him being the reckless one instead of Keith. He had been close to dislocating his shoulder when the Malkordans activated the cuffs and dropped him to the floor. His shoulder still ached now. He might have popped something. But he deserved it.

At last, something happened. There was a tingle in Lance's wrists, a buzz of sound that was almost too high to be audible, and that was all the warning he got before the cuffs activated. One hand was dragged forcibly from Hunk's hair to thud against the wall, and the other hit the floor between his legs, torn from Hunk's fingers. On the other side of Hunk's body, he heard Keith grunt as his cuffs hit the floor, too.

Hunk whined in his sleep and slumped even more bonelessly against Lance's chest, sagging without Lance's arms to support him. Lance had a bare moment to be grateful that they hadn't activated Hunk's cuffs, too, and woken him from much needed sleep, before he was overwhelmed with blinding rage. They had taken away the use of his hands. _He couldn't hold Hunk like this._ How _dare_ they.

The latch of the door released with a loud clunk, and Lance's eyes whipped over to stare at it. He could feel Keith's attention focusing there, too. Razor sharp. The door opened, and a Malkordan came in.

Lance's throat tightened until he could barely breathe, though he wasn't sure if it was fear, rage, shame, or some combination of the three. He recognized this Malkordan. Yes, he certainly did. This was the lieutenant he had been flirting with yesterday, before this ordeal began, before he knew what they were capable of, what they were going to do to him and Hunk and Keith.

"Corallis." Lance hissed through his teeth.

He refused to use her title. Yesterday he had been as polite as could be, all lieutenant this and lieutenant that, but respect was dead, now. She had been friendly in return, and he'd even thought that she might be flirting back with one or two replies. Her eyes had been bright, her smile sharp. Now, looking back, that image seemed predatory in his mind instead of pretty. She had been playing him for a fool all along, and Lance was getting sick of it. Why did the women of this universe hate him so much?

She smiled now, sharp and wide and bright, and yeah, definitely a predator's smile. Lance shuddered, his body tensing, though he tried to hold himself still for Hunk's sake. He hoped Hunk would stay asleep through this, whatever it was. Whatever she came to do, to say, to taunt them, to question them, whatever. Just let them leave Hunk alone. He'd been through enough.

"Greetings, Blue Paladin." Corallis stepped to the middle of the cell and stood there with her hands on her hips, grinning down at him from a height. Lance was forced to look up at her to meet her eyes, but he would not be intimidated. He was seething, teeth clenched and lips tight, and he hoped she could see the fire in his eyes.

Corallis chuckled, shoulders bouncing, and gestured around the cell with an arrogant little flick of the wrist. "I do appreciate you accepting my invitation to come and visit me in my humble abode. Though I suppose you weren't given much of a choice, were you? Still, you should be pleased. You said you would like to get to know me, even offered to come to my place. Are you not happy to be here?"

Lance shuddered and bit his lip for a moment before replying. He didn't want to burst into a shout and wake Hunk. He had to control himself. "You're a smart woman, Corallis. I think you already know the answer to that question."

She shook her head, broad and mocking. "Tsk tsk. Such rudeness from my honored guest. I thought you would at least be a gentleman, but you turn out to be boor. I'm disappointed."

"What do you want with us?" Keith spat, his voice harsh and grating. "What did you do to Hunk?"

"The Yellow Paladin?" She looked over at the form slumped against Lance with a dismissive eye and shrugged. "Whatever we wanted."

Despite his determination to be still, Lance jerked against the cuffs with a sudden urgent need to leap to his feet and punch that woman in the face. There was sharp, hasty movement on Keith's side, too, his body lurching forward, then pulled back by the cuffs. His breath whistled out through his teeth.

"You'll never get what you want," Keith gritted out. "Whatever it is. Doesn't matter. You'll never get it. We'll never give you anything."

Corallis raised her eyebrows and turned her attention to him, her smile becoming somehow even more smug, more infuriating. "We'll see. I don't think you quite understand your position yet, Red Paladin. We do not require you to 'give' anything to us at all. What we want, we will simply take. And you will be unable to stop us."

"And what is it that you want?" Lance demanded, still struggling against the cuffs. "Information about the lions? You wanna know how they work? Is that why you interrogated Hunk first?" He forced himself to settle back, curving his body over Hunk as much as he could. A tight smile stretched across his face. "I know he didn't tell you anything. He didn't say a word. You were embarrassed by your failure. That's why you wiped his memory, wasn't it? Because you couldn't stand knowing that you had lost, so you didn't want him to know, either."

Corallis's left eye twitched, which might have been a sign that Lance had struck a nerve. He logged that info away for later. But her smile never wavered. "You certainly do make a lot of assumptions for a self-proclaimed master of tactics, Blue Paladin. You understand nothing of your purpose here."

"But it has to do with the lions, doesn't it?" Based on her body language and expression, Lance was almost completely certain of that now. "You guys think you can build creatures of magic and metal from scratch, just from the incoherent ramblings of a few beaten prisoners? Wow. The military of Malkord is a lot dumber than I thought it was."

"Why us?" Keith added, though that question had been pretty far from Lance's mind. It seemed irrelevant to him. "I get Hunk, he's a skilled engineer and knows the most about the lions of anyone you can get your hands on. But why me? Why Lance? If you need someone besides Hunk to get information on the lions, just keep me. I'm the best pilot of the three of us. Lance doesn't even hold a candle to my skill. Wipe his memory and let him go."

"Oh, I don't think so. We have a use for all three of you." Corallis stepped over to Keith and crouched down in front of him, then reached out to trail one finger over his jawline. Keith bore it for as long as he could, his teeth clenched and eyes fiery, then turned his head sharply away. Corallis grinned.

She looked at him, then to Lance. "Truthfully, we would have been pleased to capture all five paladins of Voltron. But the Black Paladin is too dangerous, with that weaponized limb of his, and the Green Paladin is too young. We are not war criminals. We will not imprison a child."

The sheer hypocrisy of this threatened to take Lance's breath away. He stared at Corallis for a moment, unblinking. "For real?"

Corallis narrowed her eyes at him. "Are you questioning the morality of the Malkordan military?"

Lance almost burst into hysterical laughter. He held himself off, mostly for Hunk's sake. It was a straight-up miracle that the poor guy hadn't woken up already with all this going on. He decided to try a different approach.

"What if I told you that me and Hunk and Keith are all under the age of majority on our home planet? Would you let us go?"

Something flickered deep in Corallis's eyes. She looked at him, then back to Keith. She studied him closely for a long moment, tilting her head to the side. Keith stared back at her, eyes fierce and unwavering. Corallis looked to Lance with a sneer. "You lie. The three of you are adults."

Lance's mouth twisted. "Well, yeah. But only because we've been in space for a while now. When we started this stupid field trip, Hunk and me weren't old enough to vote, and Keith was only slightly older. We're still not old enough to buy certain intoxicating substances back home."

Corallis frowned. "What does that matter?"

"Nothing, apparently. Not to you, anyway. Because even if we were minors, you wouldn't let us go, would you?" Disgust crept into Lance's voice. He made no attempt to hide it. "Don't pretend to sit atop some throne of morality, full of noble intentions and goals. Not to us. We know just how despicable you are, just how low you're willing to stoop."

Between one blink and the next, Corallis was no longer crouching in front of Keith. She was in front of Lance instead, her face terrible with rage. Lance heard a sharp _crack_ in the air, and pain bloomed across the left side of his face as his head snapped away. She had backhanded him so fast and hard that he hadn't even seen her hand move. For a second his vision went black and white, and he saw stars.

Hunk, still sagging against him, sagged even further, then suddenly went still. Lance sat frozen, panting, fighting down the urge to yell. Or cry. He blinked at the tears, forcing them back. He would not cry in front of this woman. He would not. Not even in shock or pain. He wouldn't.

He felt the tension in Hunk as he gradually came to his senses and registered the situation, and he willed him to be still, to keep lying there slumped against Lance and the wall. _Don't move. Don't let her know you're awake. Please, buddy, stay out of this._

If, at any point, he and Hunk were going to develop telepathic powers because of the constant connection to the lions or whatever, this would be a great time for it. Lance thought at him as hard as he could, _Be still, be still, be still._

No idea if it worked or not, but Hunk was still, anyway. Maybe he was trying to figure out what was going on after being abruptly woken, or maybe he had already figured it out and was smart enough to see that playing dead was the best play. _Be still. Please. Don't let her know you're awake._

He heard Keith cursing up a storm, struggling uselessly against his cuffs again. Didn't bother thinking at him. Keith wouldn't pay attention even if he could hear him. "Just try that, just _try that_ again with my hands free, you just _try_ it, let me go and _see what I'll do..."_ It made no sense, nothing but a lot of angry words and tangled-up threats pouring out of Keith's mouth, but a part of Lance welcomed the distraction. Corallis made no response, focused entirely on Lance.

After a long moment to process, to compartmentalize and push the fear and pain and helplessness into little boxes in his brain where he could control them, Lance slowly turned his head back to look Corallis in the face again. He smirked slowly, deliberately, the corner of his mouth curling up. She had split the skin over his cheekbone. He felt the blood trickling down, slowly reaching for his chin.

"Child abuser," he said.

She backhanded him again on the other side, just as fast, just as hard.

Lance took a touch longer to recover this time. Still, he did it. He forced it all back, then turned his head to face Corallis again. And he stared at her, face deliberately blank. He didn't have to say anything. She knew what he was thinking.

Corallis's upper lip twisted in utter contempt. Then she leaned back and slowly rose to her feet. She stood over Lance, staring down at him the way someone stared at something particularly wet and disgusting they had found on the bottom of their shoe. "Thank you for making up my mind," she said.

Lance blinked.

She stepped back and crossed her arms over her chest, legs spread in a power stance, and looked between Keith and Lance. "I came in here to examine you two myself, to decide whether the Red Paladin or the Blue Paladin should be tested next. I was prepared to choose either one, depending on what I learned. And yes, I have chosen."

She looked to Lance with the most smug, self-satisfied expression Lance had ever seen. And he had seen Pidge's face after she solved some weird technological problem that had even had Coran stumped for decades. "The Blue Paladin will serve. You were curious about what we had done with the Yellow Paladin, yes? Now you will learn."

As if her words had electrified him, Hunk chose that moment to reveal that he was no longer sleeping. He exploded up out of his position against the wall, rising like a monolith of protective rage, a volcanic explosion of yellow and brown. He didn't say a word, didn't make a sound, just threw himself at Corallis with his hands outstretched, reaching for her neck.

He almost made it. His fingers were a hair's-breadth away from locking around her throat. Then some unseen guard watching over the monitors activated the cuffs around his wrists, and Hunk's hands immediately began to sink to the floor. He tried to fight it, try to keep his hands in the air, still reaching. But even his strength had a limit. Whatever the cuffs were made of, however they worked, they were too much for Hunk. They pulled his hands down as if they suddenly weighed hundreds of pounds, and he crashed to the floor at Corallis's feet with a cry of pain.

For a long moment, Corallis stood there, staring down at him. Her chest heaved with several large, deep breaths. Lance himself barely breathed, watching her eyes. They seemed just the slightest bit larger than they had been before Hunk threw himself at her. Had he surprised her? Frightened her, even if only for a split second? He hoped so. It was the only victory, however small and meaningless, that they were likely to get out of this.

Lance's own heart was beating rabbit-fast, but his throat was choked and he could not speak. He wished with all his heart that Hunk had remained asleep, that he hadn't tried to intervene. What would she do to him now? He was at her mercy. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing that Lance or Keith could do to stop her.

Hunk, for his part, glared up at Corallis entirely without fear. Defiance screamed in every line of his body, even hunched over with his wrists now bound to the floor. His mouth was drawn in a wide grimace of anger and distaste. "I don't care what you do to me," he said, his voice harsh and grinding. Again, Lance heard that rasp deep his throat that meant he had been yelling, maybe screaming, and he winced in sympathy. "Take me again. Beat me again. Violate my mind again. Try to pry all the secrets you want from me. But leave. Lance. Alone."

Lance couldn't let that be. He opened his mouth to protest, but Corallis's laughter cut him off. He stared at her, heaving for breath.

She laughed, throwing her head back, arms still crossed over her breast. It was loud and mocking and derisive, and the sound seemed to burn against Lance's ears. How dare she. How _dare_ she laugh at Hunk's courage, his defiance?

Then she lowered her head, still grinning, and looked down at Hunk. "I was debating how to punish you for trying to attack me. Thank you for telling me how. Yes, I will take the Blue Paladin. I will keep him for a long time. And I will bring him back broken. I think that will be a grand punishment for you."

Hunk _roared._ He fought against the cuffs like a maniac, far harder than Lance or even Keith had done. Because, of course, this was his first experience with them. He didn't know how useless it was. He pulled so hard, so mightily, that Lance feared he might actually dislocate his shoulders, tear his elbows, break his wrists.

"Hunk, stop!" he cried, finally finding his voice. "Stop, stop, you'll hurt yourself!"

Hunk's back heaved. He got his knees under him and _pulled,_ his entire body straining with effort, to absolutely no effect. He was all but frothing at the mouth now with rage, and it was terrifying to witness.

"Hunk!" Lance cried, tears in his eyes, in his voice. His voice was high with terror. He had never seen Hunk like this, so hysterical and enraged and out of control. He never wanted to see him this way again. "Please, babe. Please stop!"

Finally, Hunk heard him. He fell still, heaving and panting, and looked over his shoulder at Lance. His visible eye was wide, almost rolling, and Lance caught his breath in sympathy and pain.

"Hunk," he called again, from across the echoing canyon of three feet that separated them. Heard the sob in his voice. "Stop fighting, please. Please, I beg you. It's okay. I'll be okay. I swear I will. Just be okay. That's all I need from you. Just be okay."

Hunk went limp. He fell to the floor, panting. He was sobbing too.

Two guards came into the cell, bypassing Hunk and stepping over his prone body without a word. Another buzz, and Lance's cuffs released and dropped his hands to the floor. The guards seized him by the arms, hauled him to his feet, and dragged him away.

Lance didn't fight them. He was glad. They were taking him instead of Hunk or Keith. So it was fine. It was what he wanted, anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

A few minutes after they took Lance away, Keith's cuffs finally released. Hunk's did not. Keith had been straining against his trapped wrists for so long that he no longer realized he was doing it, and when they let go he gasped, hands flying upward and almost hitting him in the face. He slumped for a moment, arms aching and throbbing, then looked over at Hunk and found him still kneeling where they'd left him, bent almost double with his head down and his hands still bound to the floor.

"Hunk."

In a flash, Keith crossed the cell to reach him and fell down at his side. Hunk was shaking like a leaf, his eyes closed and face screwed up in a grimace, what Keith could see of it, anyway. Slow, tentative, Keith reached out a hand and laid it on Hunk's back. Hunk barely reacted. His flesh shuddered a bit at the touch, and he just knelt there, breathing hard.

"Quiznak. You're shivering." Keith pressed his hand flat against Hunk's back as if he could warm him somehow. Then he remembered the jacket, discarded on the floor where they'd been sitting. He jumped to his feet and brought it back, draped it over as much of Hunk's back as he could. But Hunk was too large, and the jacket was too small. Useless.

Not unlike Keith in this moment.

He crouched next to Hunk's head, then bent down and leaned over to look in his face. "Hunk." His voice was pleading now. "Talk to me. Please."

Hunk shuddered. His head swung from side to side in a slow gesture of negation. He whispered something that Keith couldn't make out.

Keith leaned closer, straining to hear. "What was that? Sorry, buddy. I missed it."

Hunk raised his head enough for Keith to see again how swollen his face was, the deep black and purple bruises around his eyes, the red scrapes on his cheek and chin. "They're hurting him," he said, and if ever there was the sound of weeping without tears, this was it. "They're hurting him. Right now. And I can't make it stop."

Anguish rippled through Keith's chest. He drew a breath, then another one. It was hard to control. "I know," he said. It hurt him, too, but he was humbled in the face of Hunk's utter agony. It didn't seem worth it to mention that he was angry and afraid, too. "I'm sorry. I wish..."

 _I wish I could have taken his place._ He had tried. Tried to give a reason for her to take him instead of Lance. Even to send Lance back to the team. He had failed.

He had no words of reassurance to give. He had nothing. Keith knelt there, helpless, looking at his injured friend as he cried for another friend, and Keith had nothing to offer him.

But strangely, impossibly, Hunk mustered up a smile. It was weak and shaky, but still meaningful. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I know you hate this too. You're...you're really protective, you know. Almost as much as Shiro. Even though you and Lance like to fight like cats and dogs, I know it's killing you to not be able to save him from this."

Keith sucked in a shuddering breath, then fell down on his rear at Hunk's side. He felt limp and exhausted and wrung out. Here was Hunk, bruised and bloody, terrified and desperate for his missing partner, and he still had the strength and compassion to see Keith's pain, too, and try to soothe it. "I..." He shook his head, wordless.

Hunk amazed him. Lance amazed him, too. Lance had been the most frightened and distraught of the three of them when they were taken like that from their beds in the middle of the night. Keith had noticed that right away, though he hadn't been able to do anything about it. Hunk had tried, in the few moments they had to gather themselves, to try to comfort each other. Then the men with the guns had come for Hunk. The moment the gun stopped pointing him and he realized what had happened, Lance had released a yell of rage and thrown himself at the door in an attempt to break it down.

It wasn't as if Lance's fear had gone away. After they took Hunk, then brought him back bloody and unconscious, the terror in Lance's body language and the wildness in his eyes had only seemed to grow. But it was...overcome. Subverted. Buried in his overwhelming need to protect Hunk, to save him, to put himself in the way of any further harm that could come to him. Lance was just as afraid as before, no, even more so, but he didn't let it control him. He had higher priorities. He felt...so much. All the time.

It worked differently for Keith. Instead of different emotions living alongside each other in his body and him choosing which one to be his guide, he preferred to repress anything that felt uncomfortable or unhelpful. He had gotten very good at it over the years, too good. Now it wasn't only that he didn't like being afraid...a part of him was literally afraid of being afraid. Of feeling almost anything, really, since any powerful emotion could be uncomfortable, including joy. He would rather be calm and rational. He sucked at it, most of the time, but that was what he aspired to.

The only emotion he truly considered to be his friend was anger. He could use that as fuel. It bore him up and lent strength to his body when he was tired or overwhelmed, sharpened his mind and told him where to strike. Anger was useful. Anger was an ally.

But right now, it wasn't helping. Nothing was helping. Keith's chest heaved, and another wave of helplessness swept over him.

While he was still struggling to deal with this, Hunk had calmed even further. He sat up, as much as the bonds would allow, and sat cross-legged on the floor to face Keith. Distress still lengthened his face and creased his eyes, but his breathing had slowed and the tears had stopped. Here was another way of dealing with uncomfortable emotions. Hunk allowed himself to feel them, totally and completely, let them flood him and take him over for as long as they needed to. Then, when he had acknowledged them and understood them, he let them go. He moved on. It was a remarkable skill, and Keith knew Hunk had gotten a lot of practice with it. It still wasn't any less impressive to witness.

"All right," Hunk said almost calmly, though stress lurked under his voice. "We need to think about this. There's gotta be something we can do."

Keith huffed in frustration, and his eyes went involuntarily to the cuffs that held Hunk to the floor. "What, though? Lance said... When you fell asleep, he thought you had a plan. But now, I don't think they're gonna let you up, man. And I don't know what to do."

Hunk's jaw set in determination. "You'll have to be my hands, that's all." He looked at Keith thoughtfully for a moment. "Do you know sign language? Even just the alphabet?"

Keith shook his head.

Hunk frowned. "I'd teach you, but then I'd be teaching whoever is monitoring the cell, too. We need a way to communicate that they won't understand, but I'm pretty sure the translation technology will be able to pick up any standard languages from Earth, if we even share one besides English."

Keith nodded slowly. He had figured from the way Hunk and Lance had spoken cagily at times that they were assuming that the Malkordans were listening in on them. Probably watching, too, judging by how quickly someone had activated Hunk's cuffs when he leaped to attack Corallis. Keith couldn't see any cameras, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Even back on Earth, high-end security cameras were very difficult to spot, and this was an Earth-like but highly advanced planet. Who knew what the Malkordans were capable of.

"We need something like a code," Keith said. "Like a verbal encryption. Something that will kind of...I dunno. Scramble our speech a little. Enough that we can understand each other, but the translation program won't pick it up." He sighed, shoulders slumping. "We really should have discussed this _before_ we got into this situation."

"Yeah. We'll have to talk about it with the team when we get out." Hunk nodded calmly. Then something sparked in his eye. "Encryption...that's a good thought. This sounds a little silly, but do you know pig Latin?"

A slow grin began to build on Keith's face. Yeah, it was silly. But it might work. "Ofyay oursecay. My childhood might not have been ideal, but I was still a _kid."_

"Their translation algorithms will probably figure it out eventually, so we should keep it for the most important stuff."

"Yeah."

A tingle of anticipation passed over Keith's shoulders. This was dangerous. The Malkordans knew what they were doing, what they were planning. They could hear every word he and Hunk were saying. But they were _doing_ something. Hunk had a plan. Even if it didn't work, even if the Malkordans activated Keith's cuffs, too, and put a stop to it before they got anywhere, at least they were trying. They were fighting. That feeling of helplessness was almost vanquished, just with that knowledge.

Hunk nodded firmly, meeting Keith's determined look with his own. "Okay. So first thing, eeway ottagay urntay offyay esethay uffscay." _We gotta turn off these cuffs._

"You think you can?"

"Maybe. But Iyay eednay omesay indkay ofyay ooltay." _I need some kind of tool._

Keith hummed.

"Now, etendpray isthay isyay otnay ossiblepay. Akemay emthay inkthay isthay anplay on'tway orkway. Enthay ooyay ancay artstay acingpay, eesay ifyay ooyay ancay indfay omethingsay." _Pretend this is not possible. Make them think this plan won't work. Then you can start pacing, see if you can find something._

Keith shook his head. "Are you kidding, Hunk? That's ridiculous."

Hunk put pleading in his eyes and expression. "Please, Keith. We gotta try."

"You know, what? No." Keith jumped to his feet and looked down at Hunk, his hands closing into fists. He was almost shaking now, and he hoped the guards thought it was agitation and anger, rather than cold and eagerness. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. We need something that will _help_ us, not pie in the sky fantasies. Is that really the best you can come up with?"

Hunk slumped against his bonds, his shoulders falling down. His forehead was wrinkled with sadness, eyebrows drawing together. "C'mon, Keith. At least give it a shot."

Keith shook his head, hard. "No. No way." He softened his voice and looked down at Hunk with compassion. "Look, I know you're still getting over what they did to you, and you're really upset about Lance. Maybe your brain is a little scrambled. Just...just sit there for a while, try to come up with something better. I'm sure you will."

Hunk gave him a watery smile. "Okay. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Just...feel better, okay, man?" Keith rubbed his hands over his arms. "I'm gonna walk. Try to warm up. Let me know if you want me to come back to you."

"No, that's fine." Hunk sighed. "Walk all you need. It won't bug me."

"Okay." Keith suited actions to words. He took a moment to pick up his jacket, which had slid to the floor when Hunk sat up, and draped it over Hunk's shoulders again. Then he started to pace the cell.

He needed something Hunk could make into a tool. Or something Hunk could direct him to make into a tool, since Hunk couldn't use his hands right now. Keith already knew, from his restless pacing earlier, that there was almost nothing in the cell with them. The best thing he could think to use was the metal bed frame in the corner. Maybe he could pull it apart, find a piece of usable metal somewhere. He paced the cell, keeping his eyes on it with each round, trying to study it so he could figure out what to do before he tried it. If he made it too obvious what he was going for, the guards would figure it out and stop him. Then they would take the frame out and remove their last sliver of hope.

When his pacing took him away from the bed frame, he used the motion of rubbing his arms to try to study the cuff on his wrist. He tried to see what Hunk had seen, what had made him think that he had a chance to deactivate it. Was there an opening? A catch? Keith couldn't see one. But maybe... The indicator light strip in the middle of the cuff. It was lit on Hunk's cuffs, a dull red color showing that they were active as they pinned him to the floor. Maybe... Might they be able to pry open that tiny light strip, maybe get to the inner workings of the cuff that way?

Keith couldn't come up with another possibility. All right. So they needed something thin and small to wedge into that tiny gap. Like an exacto knife, a small sharp blade. Keith felt another pang of regret in his chest that when he'd been taken, he hadn't had a chance to conceal a knife on his body. He was never gonna sleep unprepared again. If only he had thought about it earlier, hid something in his shoe or an inner pocket...

No. Regrets were useless. They had to work with what they had. Finally, Keith came to the bedframe again. He paused for a moment, staring at it and rubbing his arms. He breathed faster, working himself up, then suddenly let out a yell and kicked it with all his strength. He pushed it hard with the sole of his foot, cracking it against the wall. The metal creaked but didn't break or bend. He kicked it again.

"Keith!" Hunk called to him, sounding genuinely alarmed. "Calm down, man! It's gonna be okay. We're gonna get out of here, I swear. Please calm down!"

"No. I. Will. Not." Keith spoke through gritted teeth. With each word, he kicked the metal frame again, slamming it between his foot and the wall. C'mon, break. Fall to pieces. Give him something to work with.

Finally there was a cracking sound. Not the main frame itself, but one of the legs, repeatedly crushed against the wall until something gave. Keith finally let himself stop, panting. The sole of his foot was starting to throb from the hard blows, even through the bottom of his shoe. He stared at the broken metal leg, saw a glimmer of hope in a strip of jagged metal that had split along the break. It was still hanging on the edge of the leg by a corner, but he might be able to break it off with another hard pull.

But how to do that without raising suspicion? Keith went back to pacing, in the middle of the cell now, back and forth in tight circuits. He was panting, and his body wasn't as cold after the hard exertion. He swung his arms and tried to think. He was aware of Hunk watching him, only his eyes moving as he followed Keith's agitated pattern criss-crossing the cell.

"Keith, why did you do that?" Hunk asked calmly. Keith heard something in his voice that told him to listen carefully, and he tilted his head, concentrating on the meaning behind Hunk's words. "You should try to put that back together. It was rude to break something that our hosts gave to us, even if we can't use it properly right now. I'm sure they just haven't found time yet to bring us a mattress for the bed. What will they say when they see you've broken it before we even got a chance to use it?"

Keith ran his fingers through his hair and tried to draw a breath. "I...I guess you're right," he said, putting shame and reluctance in his voice. "That was rude." He looked up at the corner of the wall, where he guessed a security camera might be. "I'm sorry. I'll try to fix it."

He turned on his heel and went back to the frame, then knelt down by the bent leg. He reached out with both hands and pulled on the twisted metal. The loose sliver came off his hand, and he palmed it carefully. He pushed against the twisted leg with his empty hand and slid the one with the metal back to his shoe, where he pushed the metal strip in carefully between his sock and the leather. Then both hands went back to the bed frame, and he pushed it with all his might.

After a several minutes of sweating and grunting, bracing the frame between his knee and the wall, he managed to force the twisted leg back into something close to where it had been before. It was still obviously broken, but it stood up again. Not that Keith really expected the Malkordans to ever bring them a mattress, but if they did, the bed should be usable.

He stood up and looked at the imperfect frame for a moment longer, then turned and moved to Hunk again. He sat down in front of him, cross-legged, mirroring Hunk's position. "I'm cold," he murmured, and he leaned forward and rested the top of his head on the front of Hunk's shoulder.

"Me too," Hunk said, just as soft, just as gentle. He leaned forward, too, head pressing to Keith's shoulder with his face looking downward. They were both hunched over, creating a space between them and beneath their heads that should be sheltered from the cameras' view.

Keith reached into his shoe and brought out the metal strip to show to Hunk. Hunk caught his breath. "Icenay objay." Soft, almost inaudible. _Nice job._

Keith smiled, disproportionately happy at the praise. It was just a little twist of metal, jagged and broken, and it already hurt his fingers to hold it. As victories went, it was small and pathetic. But it still felt like a victory.

Keith turned over his wrist, lifting the cuff so Hunk could look at it, and raised the strip of metal to poke at the indicator light. "Is this...?"

"Mm." Hunk hummed, watching carefully. "Maybe."

Keith tried to jab the edge of the metal strip between the indicator light and the rest of cuff, but the strip was too big. He huffed in frustration.

"The floor," Hunk said.

Keith made a questioning noise. He hoped the sounds they were making were cryptic enough.

"Apescray ityay. Akemay ityay innerthay." _Scrape it. Make it thinner._

Ah. Keith shifted surreptitiously, making a gap between his legs and Hunk's. He hunched down farther and pressed the metal strip against the rough stone floor. And he started to scrape.

Hunk talked to cover up the noise. "Do you think the others are missing us yet? Or is it still the middle of the night? I don't know, my sense of time is all messed up since the whole mind-wiping thing."

"I think it's been maybe four hours since they took us from our beds," Keith said.

"Mm, 'kay. So depending on what time that was, it might be almost morning, or it might still be sleeping time. Lance and Pidge and I stayed up kinda late just playing around and having fun, acting like it was a sleepover at a hotel or something. There was this weird boardgame in Lance's room... When we get out of here, I wanna find out what the real rules are and try to play it. But in the meantime, yeah, we just made up rules, since we couldn't read the instructions, all written in Malkordan or whatever. We played it kind of like the Game of Life, you ever played that one?"

Keith shook his head.

"Okay, so it's just a standard board game with these paths you follow, and all of the squares are life events like graduating high school, getting married, buying a house, having a kid. Your game piece is a little car, and you start with one passenger to signify you, but you can add more for a spouse and kids and whatever. Anyway, yeah, so the game in Lance's room had a board with a lot of spaces, and some big playing pieces that smaller pieces fit into, and some pieces of paper that could pass as fake currency, though I have no idea what Malkordan currency looks like. There weren't any dice or a spinner or anything, but turns out that Pidge always carries a game die in her pocket, who knows why. She just...has a lot of pockets and puts random stuff in there, I guess, so she had all kinds of weird stuff on her when we left Earth. And now she carries a game die everywhere she goes. I would say it's like a good luck charm, but I don't think Pidge believes in luck. Maybe it reminds her of her dad or something."

There was a danger of Hunk's voice turning sad at that, so Keith interjected. "So what rules did you make up? Since you couldn't read the spaces."

"Oh, yeah. All the squares were blank, and we didn't have any paper to make cards with life events or anything, so we made stuff up. Every square was different every time. The rule was that you couldn't make up the event for your own square, though. Someone else had to do it. So pretty quick it devolved into just constantly sabotaging each other. Like, 'This square says you have to pay two hundred space bucks to the player in last place because you were late on your taxes,' or 'This square says the water pipes busted in your house and also your house burned down so now your house is lost and you gotta move back three spaces.' Stupid stuff like that."

Keith smiled, listening to Hunk ramble. He wished now that he'd said yes when Lance invited him to come hang out with them in his room. At the time he had thought it would be a better idea to get as much sleep as possible, not knowing what the next day would bring. He didn't get how Lance and Hunk and Pidge could treat this trip like some weird kind of vacation. They were on an alien, possibly hostile planet. Couldn't they see that?

Now, though, he kind of understood where they were coming from. Of course they knew. They always knew. It had been a shock to be kidnapped from their beds in the middle of the night, but it was also kind of par for the course on their series of misadventures through the universe. Hunk and Pidge and Lance found opportunities for fun and relaxation when they could and always grabbed them eagerly because they never knew when they would find them again.

Next time, yeah. Next time, Keith would join them. He would have fun making up stupid game rules to mess with Lance. He bet himself, silently, that he would even be able to make Hunk and Pidge laugh. He wanted to hear that, wanted to hear Lance sputter in indignation at being forced to do what Keith said.

Hunk kept talking. "And we kept, like, putting lots and lots of the smaller playing pieces into the big ones, like the cars with the babies in Life, but we had _so many_ of the smaller pieces. It was like we were rabbits or something, just having all the kids, all the time. Lance liked that part though, he said it was more realistic, only in the last couple hundred years have small families been _normal_ in civilized places on Earth, usually it's normal to have as many kids as possible, because kids are assets, not liabilities. Which makes sense coming from Lance, since he's from a big family and he loves it. But Pidge started arguing with him about the economics of having large families in a modern society with all the costs of child-rearing and eventual training, and they started arguing about the cost-risk benefits of trade school versus graduate school, and man, it was getting _heated..."_

The metal strip was wearing down, though not as quickly as Keith would have liked. Still, he knew he was making progress. Just had to keep going. He shifted his grip on the piece of metal and scraped it on the stone, over and over and over.

"Who won the game?" he asked. He frowned lightly. "Did anyone win the game?" He was beginning to doubt.

Hunk chuckled, deep and warm. His head shivered against Keith's shoulder with the movement, not unpleasantly. He was starting to lean into Keith more heavily than he had before, though. Maybe his injuries were catching up with him. Keith shifted himself where he sat to try to offer more support and leaned his own head more heavily against Hunk's shoulder to hold him up.

"Nah, no one won," Hunk said, humor in every syllable. "Unless maybe I won, because Pidge and Lance got so invested in ruining things for each other that they didn't notice that I actually managed to get to the end of the board before they did. But the thing is that usually with Life you add up your money and stuff and figure out who won that way, but none of us had any left after making each other's lives absolutely miserable."

Keith chuckled, too. "Maybe you should make an actual Game of Life to play back at the Castle of Lions some time and find out who can really win." They already had several decks of cards and a Jenga set, created from various materials found around the castle. Family game nights were fun with the Voltron crew, Keith had to admit.

"Mm, we probably won't bother. Life is kind of a boring game, really. Too much like Candyland. No, the game Pidge and Lance really want to make next is Risk. That's gonna take a while. But I do think they have all the rules memorized between the two of them, though they played with different variations in their homes. They'll just have to figure out a way to codify a set of rules between them, and also maybe smooth-talk Coran into helping us make pieces. We gotta have properly balanced dice for a real game of Risk, so we can't just go the handmade route. Coran knows how to fabricate stuff in the workshops on the maintenance level, but we have to get his permission now. After some, eh, rather unfortunate incidents early on."

Keith wanted to laugh at that, lips twitching up at the corners. "Did Pidge try to construct parts to make a robot or something?"

"No, it was me." Hunk's voice was sheepish. "Pidge likes to repurpose stuff rather than design her own, so she mostly works with what she finds available. But I had this idea to make a differently shaped nozzle for a fuel container on one of the pod ships... Yeah. Did not go well."

"Did you blow something up?"

Hunk made an indignant noise. _"No."_ Then he calmed and went sheepish again. "I, uh, melted something. Actually."

Keith laughed straight out at that. It was hard to believe how relaxed and comfortable he felt, even in this awful situation, just listening to Hunk talk. Lance had a knack for relaxing people, too, but too often he succeeded in getting Keith's hackles up, instead. Somehow, Hunk never did.

The metal strip was almost ready. In fact, it might be ready now. Keith stopped scraping. His wrist tingled and ached from the prolonged movement at an uncomfortable angle. He should stretch out his forearms, probably, keep them limber. But first, a look at what he'd accomplished.

Wait. The tingling in his wrist was getting stronger. It was in both wrists now. Then Keith heard the buzz that meant the cuffs were about to activate, and he had barely enough time to move them above an open patch of floor where they wouldn't break his legs before they thudded abruptly down and he was trapped there, gasping at the shock of it.

His gaze flew in panic to the metal strip, lying exposed on the floor between his shin and Hunk's knee. Had they seen, had they...? Maybe he and Hunk hadn't been hiding it from the cameras as well as they thought they were. Even as Keith stared, his mind spinning, Hunk was already bringing his leg forward and pressing it down over the strip to hide it from view.

Then Keith heard movement beyond the door, and he swung his head over to stare, panting in dismay. Was... Could it be? Corallis said she was going to keep Lance for a long time. Had it already been that long? It didn't feel long, but Keith had been working pretty hard, keeping his mind and body occupied. Or was she coming to take another one, to work on both together? If she really wanted to hurt Lance, to punish his insolence, forcing him to watch Hunk being tortured, or even Keith, would be a cruel but effective way to do it.

It wasn't Corallis. Two guards came into the cell, carrying a limp body between them. Lance, pale and unconscious, blood painting his face from several cuts and abrasions on his forehead, his cheeks. A smear of red under his nose. Bruises already starting to bloom on every patch of exposed skin.

"Lance!" Hunk bellowed, his entire body rigid with shock and distress. He jerked against his bonds again, seemingly without conscious thought, pure reaction to Lance's appearance and Hunk's overwhelming need to go to him.

Keith's mouth pulled tight in a grimace of hate, every muscle tight and straining, but he was trapped on the floor, too. "Be careful with him!" he yelled at the guards.

Of course, they paid no attention to either Hunk or Keith's shouts, not even a glance in their direction. The guards dropped Lance on the floor in a graceless pile, a tangle of limbs and blood and bruises. Then they dusted their hands off and left the cell, as if they had done nothing more than drop off some trash in a bin.

Keith stared at the door, panting, waiting for it to shut behind them, for his cuffs to disengage. Again, he was pulling against the bonds as hard as he could, barely aware that he was doing it. It seemed to take forever, several long agonizing minutes while Hunk babbled at Lance in a rush of frightened words. "Wake up, buddy, Lance, babe, please wake up, please look at me, please, please please be okay, you said you would be okay, you have to be okay, don't be a liar, Lance, please!"

Finally, another short buzz, and Keith's cuffs lifted off the floor. He caught himself before he hit himself in the face, again, and then he was up, scrambling across the cold stone with legs that were numb and clumsy from sitting still for so long. He slid to a stop at Lance's side and reached out for him with shaking hands.

Should he move him? What if he was badly injured? Keith didn't want to do more damage than had already been done. But no, Corallis and the guards had already done as much as could be done to Lance, surely. All of Hunk's wounds were...surface-level, or so he had assured them more than once. Surely Lance's were the same. Please. Don't let it be worse than what they'd done to Hunk.

He took Lance's shoulders in his hands and carefully turned him over, rolling him so that his shoulders ended up supported by Keith's left arm. Lance's head lolled back over Keith's arm, eyes stubbornly shut, arms and legs loose and floppy on the ground. A pulse of bright red blood leaked out of his nose.

He was still bleeding? Keith caught his breath. Hunk had been in bad shape when they brought him back, but at least he hadn't been bleeding, all of his small scrapes and cuts already closing by the time he landed on the floor. Why was Lance still bleeding? His nose didn't look broken or anything.

"Lance." Keith patted his face with shaking fingers, hoping to wake him without hurting him. "Lance, open your eyes. Please. Can you look at me? I need you to look at me. Hunk is freaking out, man. You gotta tell him you're okay."

Hunk had been unconscious, too, but he had woken up almost immediately. Mostly because Lance had been screaming, Keith was pretty sure. With what they knew now, it seemed like Hunk had passed out from the effects of the mind-wipe, instead of being knocked unconscious by a strike to the head or other traumatic physical damage. Was it the same? Had they wiped Lance's memory, too?

"Lance, please." Keith kept patting his cheek. "You gotta wake up, come on. Yell at me, make fun of me for caring about you, whatever, I don't care what you say or do. Just open your eyes and look at me, c'mon. You really gonna keep us waiting like this? Rude."

Nothing. Lance remained limp, draped across the floor with his head bent backward over Keith's arm.

"Keith." Hunk's voice, urgent now. "Can you bring him over here? Please."

Keith nodded, suddenly unable to speak. His throat was too tight. He hefted Lance up in both arms and half-carried, half-dragged him over to where Hunk was still trapped on the floor. When were they gonna let Hunk's cuffs go? Were they still punishing him for trying to attack Corallis?

He laid Lance down in front of Hunk and knelt on his other side, bending over him to stare into his face. "Lance." His voice was a choked whisper. "Wake up. Please wake up."

Hunk hunched over him as much as he could. His eyes were brimming with tears. "His nose is still bleeding," he murmured.

Keith nodded. "Yeah, I noticed."

"I don't...I don't know what that means. Some kind of hemorrhage? Usually nosebleeds are pretty minor injuries, just some burst vessels inside the nostrils, but if it's been going on for a while..."

Keith took in the blood smeared on Lance's face, his clothes. The new blood under his nose, drips down his chin, his neck, his shoulder and chest, dried and drying and wet. Yeah. Yeah, it did seem like it had been going on for a while. What did they do to him?

Keith's hands curled around Lance's shoulders, helpless and frustrated. He wanted to shake him, but if Lance had some kind of unknown head injury, he'd be doing a lot more harm than good. "Lance, c'mon. Please wake up."

"Keith." Hunk was staring at him, eyes fixed and focused. Keith could feel the gaze on him, the intensity. He slowly raised his head and looked back into Hunk's face, and he tried not to flinch at the earnest plea he saw there. "You remember how I said you'll have to be my hands?"

Keith swallowed. He nodded.

Hunk's face was regretful. "I'm really sorry to ask this, man. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. But please. I need you to try to wake Lance the way I would, since I can't."

"What do you need me to do?" It was a bare whisper.

Hunk gave him a strained smile. "Nothing too difficult, I hope. Just...stroke his cheek. Press your hand against it. Kiss his forehead, maybe. Would that be okay?"

Keith's chest felt hollow and cold. But he nodded.

He turned back to Lance and bent over him again. Hunk talked above him, giving the soothing words that Keith was unable to supply. "Lance, please wake up. Please wake up, buddy. It's time to get up. We're getting worried, sweetheart, we're getting so worried."

Keith stroked his cheek, gently brushing his fingers from Lance's nose back to his ear, over and over. The skin under his hand felt too cool for human norm, Lance's body probably in shock from whatever they'd done to him. But it was still warmer than the air of the cell, so he knew Lance was alive. Alive and breathing, human and vulnerable, so small here. So small and hurt, so vulnerable under Keith's touch.

He laid his palm against Lance's cheek and pressed it there, and that felt warm and intimate, too, in ways Keith had never thought to experience. He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know if he was doing this right. He didn't know if he was doing anything right.

"C'mon, babe," Hunk said, almost a prayer. "Time to wake up. Time to open your eyes. Beauty sleep is over now. We're waiting for you. We're all waiting. Time to face the day. I know it's hard, it sucks, but you gotta. Please, Lance. Wake up now."

More blood trickled out of Lance's nose. Keith held his breath. Lance's eyelids twitched, and his breath halted for a moment. Then his chest convulsed, his shoulders jerked against the floor, and he suddenly bolted upright and almost knocked foreheads with him.

Keith clenched his teeth and leaned back, unable to do anything but watch as Lance doubled over, hacking and coughing. Lance's entire body shook, and it was not a gentle tremble. It was harsh, violent, just shy of convulsions. Keith gripped his shoulder, trying to hold him steady, and Hunk leaned closer. He obviously wanted to lean his head against Lance's, but couldn't while he was shaking so hard.

The coughing was awful, a low kind of wet gurgling caught up in it, thick and viscous. Not like a sick cough, like Lance had a cold or something. No, somehow this seemed worse, sounded worse. Sounded terrible, painful and disgusting and traumatic. Finally, Lance hocked up a big wad of something in his mouth and spat it out between his legs. It was blood.

"Lance!" Hunk's voice, Keith's voice. They blended together, distress and fear and sympathetic pain. Lance sagged, tipping to the side as he lost strength. He slipped away from Keith's loose grip and ended up caught, drooping, on Hunk's arm, which was still bolted to the floor. Hunk's face was almost comically desperate, he so badly wanted to catch Lance, support him, hold him up. But he couldn't.

Keith had to step in. He saw Hunk looking at him, his eyes pleading. So he reached out. "Lance." He kept his voice quiet, trying to be gentle. "Hunk can't hug you right now, so I'm gonna do it instead, okay? I'm being his hands right now."

Lance made no response, just let out a painful-sounding wheeze. His entire body heaved as he tried to catch his breath. Keith wrapped his arm around his upper back again, found a grip on his opposite shoulder, and slowly, carefully pulled him in.

Lance let himself be manhandled, limp and apparently exhausted. He sagged against Keith's body as Keith's arms folded him up, forehead resting on the side of Keith's neck. His skin was cool and clammy, and it felt supremely weird for Lance to be so quiet and still. Keith firmed his jaw and held on to him, unable to do anything else.

Gradually, Lance's breath smoothed out, though there was still a bad wheeze underneath. He kept swallowing against the blood draining down the back of his throat. He was still bleeding. Keith considered holding his nose for him to try to shut off the flow of blood, since Lance seemed too weak and confused to do it himself, but he didn't want to hurt him or scare him. Maybe they should wait it out. Surely it couldn't go on much longer.

Hunk kept talking the whole while, low and soothing and gentle. "You're okay, you're okay. Glad you're awake, Lance. Good to see you again. Glad you're here. Sorry you're not feeling good. Everything's okay. You're gonna be okay. We're all gonna be okay. Shiro's gonna wake up and realize we're gone and he's gonna be _mad,_ and Pidge will figure it out right away, seriously, she and Shiro will ask to see the security footage of the halls and it doesn't matter if they erased it, doesn't matter how they tried to hide what they did, Pidge is gonna find out, she's gonna find everything out, and then she and Shiro and Allura and Coran are gonna come down here and wreak merry hell amongst these scumbags, just you wait and see. We're gonna get out of here and you're gonna be fine and everything's gonna be okay. I promise, Lance. I promise."

Lance shuddered, fists curling in his lap. Keith held him a little tighter. Then Lance started to shake, gently at first, then harder. Keith pulled his face back, tried to look at him and see what was going on, but Lance's head was ducked down, face hidden from Keith's view. Hunk shut his lips and stared at him, eyes wide.

Then Lance lifted his head. He was laughing. It was...kind of horrible. Creepy. His mouth was open, and his teeth were bloody, and red saliva hung off his lip. But it seemed like a genuine laugh, somehow. He sounded truly, honestly amused by something.

Keith's arms tightened around him almost convulsively, compelled to try to keep him still, keep him from hurting himself. Had Lance gone crazy all of a sudden? Had whatever they'd done to him broken his mind? Or had the mind-wipe gone really, really wrong somehow?

"Lance..." Hunk sounded scared.

Lance opened his eyes and turned his head to look at him. The weird laughter calmed down, slowing to little hiccups that shook his shoulders and jarred his chest. "Sorry." His voice sounded rough and choked, but he was still grinning with bloody teeth. "It's just...pretty funny."

He sounded like himself, strangely enough. Keith pressed his hand to Lance's chest, trying to keep him upright as he continued to droop. "What is?"

"They messed up." Lance turned his head to grin at him, too. "They messed up so bad."

"Who?" Keith blinked, unable to believe what Lance was saying. "The Malkordans?"

"Yeah." Lance laughed again, then started to cough. He fell forward, almost doubling over, but Keith caught him with an arm across his front and held him upright. Lance coughed hard for a few seconds, then spat more blood on the floor between his legs, spattering red and viscous against the dark stone. He sagged in Keith's hold, limp and drained. Keith pulled him sideways to rest against him again, Lance's bony shoulder digging into his chest. Lance let him do it.

"Lance..." Still so much fear in Hunk's voice, but a different kind now, and Keith couldn't blame him. He felt the same. "What did they do to you? Do you remember it?"

"Yeah..." Lance swallowed against the blood, jerking in Keith's grip. He wasn't trying to get away from him, just couldn't stop his body from reacting. He went still immediately afterward, leaning on Keith as trustingly as a child. "I don't, don't know if they tried to erase my, my memory. If so, it...didn't stick."

Hunk frowned. He obviously wanted to ask more, pursue the possible reasons for that, but he didn't. "What happened?" he asked neutrally, though the calm was forced.

"Uh. They um. Knocked me around for a bit, to start with." Lance raised a hand loosely in the air and flapped it around. It almost seemed like a casual gesture, like he was passing off being beaten as something that didn't matter. Hunk and Keith both knew the truth, though. Hunk because he knew Lance, and Keith because he could feel his trembling intensify.

Keith said nothing, just held him tighter. Hunk's frown deepened. Lance paused. He swallowed, then spat between his legs again. This time it was a little more clear, though still mixed with red.

"It didn't seem that...serious. Like. Corallis wasn't even in on it, just a few guards. I was strapped in this chair, like they have at the dentist, kind of. Except even more serial killer-ish. And several dudes took turns hitting me, but...their hearts weren't in it. I don't know. It was like they knew they had to beat me up, because it was expected, so they did it. But it wasn't the main event. I could tell. They didn't even ask me any questions. 'Cause they didn't care."

Lance's tone indicated that he was trying to make light of this, but Keith didn't think that really made it better. Worse, maybe. That kind of callous indifference, along with cold, almost institutional abuse... It was worse than hatred. Like Lance didn't matter, his pain didn't matter to them, nothing mattered but getting what they wanted, and they would do whatever it took to attain their goals. Including kidnapping and torturing their guests, their potential allies, obviously. Keith shuddered.

Lance caught his breath at the motion, then blinked and went on. "Um. So then Corallis and this lady in scientist clothes came in. Like, you know, not a white lab coat, because that's an Earth thing, but you just know it's the same? Corallis made a gesture, telling her to do her thing, and the scientist and a guard rolled over this huge machine to the chair where I was stuck. It looked like something out of a mad scientist lab in a cartoon, all big dials and readouts, and prongs sticking out of the top, and...I might have made a joke about how dumb it looked. So Corallis made another gesture, and one of the guards cracked me a good one across the face."

Keith bit his lip to keep from interrupting. He wanted Lance to cut to the chase, but he also knew that sometimes Lance needed to meander around the point. The descriptions of the scientist's clothes and the machine and all that weren't necessary, but they gave Lance time to work up to the difficult parts.

It was Hunk who prompted Lance to go on when he paused for a moment, staring into the distance. "Then what happened?" His voice was very gentle, but there was a hint of urgency underneath. They needed to know.

"Oh. Yeah." Lance shook his head, coming out of it, and looked back to Hunk's face. "The machine had this...sort of...headset thing. Kinda like the headsets back at the Castle of Lions that we use during mental training. But this one was bigger and had more wires and junk coming out of it, and it looked... I don't know. It looked scary. I heard this buzz, like the cuffs before they activate. Electricity, I guess. And the scientist put it on my head. I tried to fight it, tried to shake my head and get away, but a guard held me still and I couldn't."

"What did it do?" Keith asked, his throat tight with dread. "What were they trying to accomplish?"

Lance laughed. It was harsh and short and carried very little amusement. This wasn't funny, not really. But Lance used humor as a defense mechanism, always had. "That's where they messed up. They messed up bad. They were trying... You'll never believe this, Keith. They were trying to study the bond."

Keith blinked. "The...the bond? Wait. The lion bond?"

"Yeah." Lance laughed again. He choked and went still, and Keith braced himself for the coughing to start. But Lance held it off, held himself rigid for a moment, then went limp again. "The electricity... It was like they overloaded my brain. It hurt...really bad. I don't know if you've ever been shocked, but man, it... It's bad. And it kept going on and on, and it seemed like it was getting worse, not better, and I couldn't make it stop, I couldn't make it stop, I was begging, and they wouldn't stop..."

"Lance." Hunk leaned his head forward, slow, a gentle fall, and rested his forehead on Lance's shoulder. "Lance, buddy. It's okay. Breathe."

Lance did. He sat there in the circle of Keith's arms, pressed between his two teammates, and he breathed. Eventually, he gathered himself. He lifted his hand enough to curl his forearm around Hunk's head, though he didn't dislodge Keith's arm around him, and he started stroking the hair on the back of Hunk's head softly, almost dreamily. He stared away at the other side of the cell. "Okay," he said. "Okay."

Keith's chest hurt. He wanted to kill every single person who had ever laid a finger on Lance in his entire life. "Tell us about the bond," he said, voice rough and shaky.

"Right. The bond." Lance drew a breath that shifted Keith's arm around him, shuddering low in his chest. "So the...power. Whatever they were doing to me. I think it was some kind of test, like when the doctor makes you drink a chemical so they can watch where it goes in your body. They were trying to, like, literally see the bond between me and Blue. The scientist lady kept saying stuff about 'getting a reading' and 'tracing topography' and obviously none of it made sense and I couldn't even hear her well at the time because I was yelling too much, but yeah. I think that's what they were trying for."

"But they made a mistake," Hunk said.

"Yeah." Lance tried for a laugh, but it came out cut off, almost inaudible. "The, uh. Power. It didn't just trace the bond or whatever. It...it super-charged it."

"Your bond with Blue," Keith repeated, trying to figure out what that meant. "It got super-charged."

"Yeah." Lance grinned, wide and bloody and gleeful. "She heard me. Blue knows. I'm not saying Shiro made the wrong call, deciding not to bring the lions down with us. The Malkordans probably would have tried to capture them, too. Maybe even succeeded. But it sure was inconvenient, being out of range of the castle. I haven't been able to talk to Blue for days, and man, I missed her. But the Malkordans made a mistake and super-charged the bond, and now Blue knows. She's up there, and she knows."

A sudden fire lit in Keith's chest. Now he understood why Lance had been laughing. He kind of wanted to laugh too.

The blue lion knew. It definitely sucked that she had probably been alerted to the situation by hearing Lance scream in agony through the bond. But now she knew, and soon everyone else would know, too.

They were getting out of here. Sooner rather than later.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Here's the part where I remind you that this fic is NOT Season 2 compliant. The stuff about lions and how far away they can sense their paladins? Forget it. I was working from very different assumptions while I was writing this fic. If Season 2 lion bond rules were in effect, this story would have been over in about five minutes. So take this as an AU, and please enjoy anyway!

* * *

Shiro had had just about enough with this "diplomacy" thing. Allura would counsel patience, and he was supposed to be setting an example for Pidge, but... It was getting very difficult.

The main problem, of course, was the fact that he only had Pidge right now to set an example for. Because the rest of his team was gone. Those three kids, half children, half men, his soldiers to command, his younger brothers in arms. His to keep, his to protect, his to hold. His, all three of them. And they weren't here. They had been stolen out of their beds in the dead of night in the middle of a highly advanced, highly weaponized _military base,_ and if that didn't throw the whole idea of allying with these people into question, Shiro didn't know what would.

Pidge wasn't exactly clingy. Pidge didn't really do clingy. But she was staying closer to Shiro than usual, almost at his elbow, probably because she could sense that he didn't want her getting any farther away. Every time she stepped to the other side of the room, his eyes flicked to her and then stayed there, making sure. Shiro couldn't help it. He was twitchy.

The Malkordan commander he was currently facing was doing nothing to make it better. They were sitting in what was supposed to be the breakfast room, cooling cups of local tea on the table between them, a tray of fruit and pastries untouched. There was far too much food. It should have been for all five of them. Now, the two who were left had no appetite.

Shiro was doing his best not to examine his feelings at this moment. It was more important to stay focused on the task, to work on getting his boys back, no time for anything else. But he knew that when he had a moment to slow down, the guilt and terror bubbling just under the surface was going to overwhelm him.

He had promised. Himself if no one else. He had promised that he would not let what happened to him happen to any of his teammates. They were too young. They never asked for this. They didn't deserve it. He wouldn't let it happen.

He had known, too, when he made that promise, that he was mostly likely going to fail. It hadn't stopped him. And now, yes, inevitably, failure had come. But Shiro was not the one suffering for it, and that was the worst failing of all.

"We need to wait for the assessment from our analysts," the Malkordan said, tapping his fingertips together, slow and measured. His face was much too calm for Shiro's liking. "I assure you, Paladin Shiro, we will discover where your fellows were taken and retrieve them before any harm is done."

Shiro tensed further, the muscles of his upper back rippling. "Look, Alarik..."

"It's Alkaric."

"Alkaric." Shiro honestly couldn't care less what this guy's proper name was. "I would prefer it if you would let Paladin Pidge have a look at the footage, too. She's a very talented and knowledgable analyst, and she might see something your people could miss. Especially since she's intimately familiar with the three paladins who were taken. If any of them tried to make a sign, no matter how subtle, she's certain to see it."

Alkaric hummed uncomfortably. "I appreciate that, Paladin Shiro, but I must insist. The security footage of the interior of our own base... I'm sure you can understand why we might prefer not to show that to outsiders."

Shiro grit his teeth, his right fist clenching on the table. When he and Pidge had woken and discovered that Hunk, Keith, and Lance were missing, both had immediately donned their armor. They wouldn't take it off until all five of them were safe in the Castle of Lions again. Now, the underarmor glove creaked against his grip, his fingers too tight, all but grinding together. If he got any more wound up, his Galra arm was going to activate on its own as a response to his inner aggression and sense of danger. He had to calm down, just a little.

He couldn't.

"I understand," Shiro said, his voice low and grating. "But I really must insist."

"Paladin Shiro, please consider our needs..."

"No." Shiro rose to his feet, pushing his chair back from the table, and stood there straight and tall with his fists clenched at his sides. He looked down at the man across the table from him, expression grim and eyes hard. Pidge, who had been fidgeting at his side, suddenly went still and watched with wide eyes.

"You need to consider my needs," Shiro said. He was done with patience, done with diplomacy. Allura could scold him later. Shiro had more pressing concerns. "My _men_ are _missing._ They were kidnapped from their beds in the middle of _your_ military base. You say that it was anti-government rebels, double agents who had been biding their time to make an effective attack, and chose this moment as their golden opportunity. You have repeatedly assured me that your security footage will give you all the clues you need to track them down and bring my people back to me. You tell me to be still and wait, to let you take care of it. But I cannot."

He pounded his fist down on the table, making the silverware rattle, the crockery jump. Alarik or whoever jumped, too. Just a little. Enough that Shiro saw it happen, though. "I cannot wait. It has been at least six hours since they were taken, by your own admission. If these anti-government rebels had any demands to make, they should have communicated with us by now. Since they have not, the only conclusion I can reach is that they captured my comrades for other purposes."

Pidge went very, very still. Shiro felt sick to his stomach. He didn't want to say this in front of her, but Pidge was smart. She would figure it out on her own, anyway, if she hadn't already.

"I can only conclude that they're being interrogated for information. About us, about Voltron, about the lions. Paladin Hunk is an amazing engineer, Paladin Keith is our best pilot, and Paladin Lance has the strongest bond with his lion. If a group of militaristic terrorists wanted to find out how the greatest weapon in the universe works, those would be the three to question. Do you disagree with my analysis?"

The Malkordan sat there, unmoving. Then he blinked. "I...cannot disagree with such well-considered deductions, no."

"I thought not. Now." Shiro placed both hands flat on the table and leaned over, pressing into Alkaric's personal space as far as he could. Shiro was tall and broad and very, very upset, so he could press pretty far.

"It's been _six hours_ since my men were kidnapped. In that time, what do you think your anti-government terrorists have been doing? Do you imagine that they've been treating them well? Giving them personalized pajama sets and luxurious rooms and expensive food service? Because I doubt it."

Alkaric's eyelid twitched. "An astute observation."

Shiro ground his teeth together. "I have no doubt at all that my men are suffering, and have been for hours. And that is _not acceptable,_ do you hear me? I will not accept excuses. I will not listen to your waffling and your nonsense and your polite lies, not for one second longer. You show us that footage. Show us that footage right now, or I swear I will tear this place apart until I find it. You do _not_ want to refuse me on this, Alarik or Alkaric or whatever your name is. You do not. Do you disagree?"

Alkaric said nothing for a long moment, just looked up at Shiro with heavy-lidded eyes. Shiro felt his jaw bunch. He resisted the urge to repeat himself. He'd said his piece. Now he had to wait for the response, and if he didn't like it, well...

He hadn't been bluffing. He would tear this place down brick by brick if that was what it took to find his team. He hoped Alkaric could see the sincerity in his eyes.

Finally, the Malkordan let out a long, heartfelt sigh, as if Shiro had deeply disappointed him. Then he stood from the table and gave Shiro a shallow bow. "I will go and inform my superiors. Please wait here, and someone will come fetch you to view the footage."

Shiro narrowed his eyes. "I'll come with you. Pidge?"

She was already standing at his side, ready to go. Her restless fidgeting from earlier had passed, and she stood with him, just as grim and determined as he was. It was odd for Pidge to be silent for so long, but apparently she had decided to let Shiro have the intimidation duties. He could tell by the set of her mouth and the squareness of her shoulders, though, that she wanted to yell at Alkaric almost as badly as Shiro did.

Alkaric looked them up and down, something like disgusted resignation on his face, then turned and walked slowly to the door. Shiro and Pidge followed at his heels. Shiro's right hand was still clenched at his side, and Pidge carried her bayard, though it wasn't activated.

They walked through the uniformly built halls of the Malkordan military base, passing displays of commendations, busts, paintings, flags and banners, all patriotic decorations that reminded Shiro uncomfortably of home. Pidge stuck close to Shiro's side, and he stared ahead at Alkaric's back, unwilling to let his gaze waver for even second.

"Shiro..." Pidge's voice was low. Shiro spared her glance, saw the nervousness in her expression, the wariness in her bent eyebrows.

Something inside him released, though in guilt instead of relaxation. He hadn't meant for her to pick up quite so much of his tension. He needed to be strong and in control, project an aura of confidence for her sake if not for his own. She needed to believe that they were going to get the others back, and he needed to make sure she did.

"What is it?" he asked, voice falling softer, just for her. "Don't worry about Keith and Hunk and Lance too much, all right? We're going to get them back soon, I promise. We won't let anything bad happen to them."

Pidge shook her head and trotted to keep up with the pace Alkaric was setting. "Don't lie to make me feel better, Shiro. I know what you told that guy is right. They're probably being interrogated right now. They're probably scared and trapped and hurting bad. Right _now._ I knew that before you said anything."

Shiro sighed and looked ahead. "You're right," he said as gently as he could. "Sorry. I shouldn't try to spare you from the truth. I just..."

"Don't worry about it." Pidge shook her head again. "I get it. You're trying to protect me. But that wasn't what I was going to ask about."

Shiro gave her a longer look, saw the tense anxiety in her face and expression. It had not been the slightest bit alleviated by their conversation so far. "What was it then?"

Pidge turned her head for a moment and looked at him frankly. "You're expecting me to look at the security footage and pull some kind of miracle. Figure out where they are from the context clues, pull coordinates out of thin air. But what if I can't? What if I don't see anything? What if there's nothing to analyze, like that guy has been saying?"

Shiro bit his lip. He watched Alkaric walk in front, and he slowed down a bit to let him outpace them so he could talk to Pidge with a little more privacy. He placed a hand on the back of her shoulder, keeping her with him and offering what reassurance he could.

"Listen," he said softly. "If you can pull off some kind of tech wizardry, that would be great, yeah. And if anyone can do it, I know you can. But even if there's nothing to see, nothing to learn, it's still worth it to make the Malkordans show it to us. At least it will prove that they have something to show at all."

"Oh." Pidge's eyes widened. "You think it might be a ruse."

Shiro grimaced and nodded. "I don't trust these guys as far as... Well, I would say as far I can throw them, but I think my Galra arm could actually throw normal-sized humanoids pretty far. As far as Allura's mice could throw them, let's say."

Pidge snorted, half in laughter and half in agreement.

Shiro's mouth curled up in a small smile. It faded quickly. "Every Malkordan we've met so far has been...weirdly intense about Voltron and the lions. How many questions have all of us fielded since we first arrived on this planet? Sure, some of those over-interested people could have been rebel double agents who were just biding their time to grab information on the strongest weapon in the universe. But all of them? No, this is fishy. I don't like it. Any of it. And I _definitely_ don't like this Alrik guy we're following."

"Alkaric," Pidge said absently. "No, I hear what you're saying. I thought it all seemed pretty suspicious, too. Why didn't either of us hear anything through the walls when the boys were grabbed? I'm a light sleeper, and I know you are too. If you even slept at all last night. Just how deep were these supposed double agents, and how many of them were there, and how could they pull off such a complicated mission so flawlessly? A lot of things don't add up."

Shiro nodded. A strange sense of relief flooded his chest, and he realized, again, how good it was to have someone on his side. Forget making allies with the Malkordans-Shiro had all the allies he needed already. Pidge was worth fifty alien soldiers, no matter how good their technology was. It itched at his chest not to have the others with them, too. Not having Keith and Lance and Hunk at his side was like missing limbs, and Shiro knew what missing a limb felt like. He was out of balance, incomplete, and desperately unhappy without them. But he had Pidge, and that was worth a lot. It was worth fortunes.

He hoped wherever the boys were, that they were at least together. No matter what their captors were doing to them, what they were suffering, how much pain they were in, he knew they could hold on as long as they had each other. Shiro wanted to find them and get them out pretty much six hours ago, but since he couldn't, the three of them being together was the best he could hope for.

Alkaric was about to turn a corner ahead of them, and Shiro quickened his pace to catch up before they lost him. Pidge was right at his side. They seemed to be leaving the residential part of the base behind and heading into the operations center, which was encouraging. Hopefully Alkaric would take them straight to a monitoring room where they could view the security footage without delay.

They caught up with Alkaric and turned a corner, into another hallway that looked like more of the same. Shiro frowned. He was beginning to suspect that this jerkwad might be leading them in circles. He shared a skeptical look with Pidge, then both quickened their pace to move up beside their Malkordan escort.

When Shiro got close enough, he could swear that he heard Alkaric muttering under his breath. Talking to someone over a hidden comm? Alkaric shut up when Shiro moved up beside him, head turned sideways to watch him fixedly as they continued to walk.

"Ah, Paladin Shiro," Alkaric said smoothly, no indication at that he'd been doing something underhanded. But then, there wouldn't be, would there? The Malkordans wouldn't send anyone but the best to try to manage the remaining Paladins, would they? "I know the walk is tedious, but I assure you that I am taking you to view the footage, as requested."

"No kidding?" Shiro looked across Alkaric's body to Pidge, who wrinkled her nose at him. "Could you show us where we're going on a map of the facility? Paladin Pidge and I are getting antsy."

Alkaric came to a sudden halt in the middle of the hall and turned to face Shiro, his face grim, shoulders straight. Shiro halted to face him, eyebrows raised. Pidge moved around to stand at his side, looking up Alkaric with challenge on her face and fire in her eyes.

"Paladin Shiro." And for once, that sounded like sincerity in Alkaric's voice. "If you distrust me this deeply, how can we continue on? How many times must I protest our embarrassment and grief that this terrible crime has been commited under our very noses? Would you like me to prostrate myself before you? Because I will, if that is what you require. This...this awful happening... The kidnapping of three young men who were, indeed, under our care and protection as honored guests and hoped-for allies... It is the worst thing that has happened to the Malkordan military in my memory. I have done my best to reassure you, as your liaison with my superiors in the force, that we will do everything we can to remedy this terrible wrong, this horrific injustice, that has been to you and your fellows. But still, you do not believe me."

Shiro stared at him, grim and unblinking. He would not allow himself to flinch. Alkaric certainly did seem sincere. He seemed shamed and frustrated and grieved, just as his words indicated. But that meant little.

"What can I do to prove our sincerity to you?" Alkaric spread his hands as if to ecompass the hallway, the base, the entire military. "If I could produce your men with a snap of my fingers, I would do so. But alas, that is beyond me. Should I excuse myself from your presence and find another to take my place? Someone that you might, perhaps, find more believable? Is that what you require? My complete and utter humiliation, my total failure to serve you as my role requires?"

Shiro's lip curled. Part of him wanted to say yes. Yes, remove this obsequious toad from his sight and replace him with a real person, someone who would be able to relate with Shiro's need to rescue his men and finally provide him with the assistance he required. But he was beginning to doubt that the Malkordan military contained any such person.

"No," Shiro said slowly, after a long moment to consider this offer. "You'll do. I would rather continue to deal with you, now that I feel that I've gotten a grasp on your character. I do not require a new liaison. No, what I _require_ is that you _do your job._ That is to say, _do what I asked for,_ and take me and Paladin Pidge to a monitor where we can review the security footage that you've been keeping from us for _no reason at all."_

Shiro firmed his jaw and took one step closer, deep into Alkaric's personal space. To Alkaric's credit, he did not flinch, did not waver. He stood there as Shiro leaned in, directly in front of his face, and stared into his eyes. "Then, after that, bring in your top analysts, your top commanders, everyone who knows even the slightest bit of information about these anti-government rebels and can help us figure out where to find them. Provide surveillance, real-time reports, everything we need to track them down. After that, supply us with the resources we need to attack the rebels and take them down, whether it's a squad, a platoon, a brigade, or _your entire army."_

Alkaric stood steady, watching him without a word. Shiro leaned back and put more distance between, if only because he did not want to share breath with this man for one second longer. "Then, and only then, will I trust that you mean what you say." He looked at Pidge. "Does that sound fair? I think it sounds fair."

Pidge looked up at him, then nodded firmly and stared back to Alkaric. She crossed her arms over her chest and spread her feet, every inch a Paladin of Voltron. "Sounds perfectly fair to me, Shiro. I agree with every word."

Shiro looked steadily at Alkaric. "Well?"

Alkaric stood there. But Shiro didn't miss the way his jaw clenched or the minute clench of his fist. When he responded, though, his voice was absolutely calm. "I understand. I will do everything I can to make sure that everything you asked for happens exactly as you requested."

Shiro doubted that, but he would take the win. He nodded, then drew a breath. "The footage?"

"There." Alkaric pointed at a door midway down the hall they were standing in. It looked like any of the other doors they had passed. "That is a security station. I had been trying to take you to the main command hub, where there would be room for the analysts and commanders you requested to meet and discuss what to do. But if you want to view the security footage immediately, I can access the computers there and pull it up for you."

Shiro's heart jumped in his chest. Finally, they were getting what the needed. He didn't let it show on his face. "That's acceptable," he said, voice clipped. "Let us get a first look at the footage right now. This second. We can go to the command hub afterward."

"Very well."

Alkaric led the way to the door he had pointed out. He touched a tag on his belt to the pad beside the door, and a lock disengaged with an audible _thunk._ Inside, as promised, was a setup that reminded Shiro heavily of any similar security station back on Earth. A couple of chairs, a bank of monitors, some controls and blinking lights from computers.

Pidge moved to the central chair immediately and sat down, and Alkaric stood at her side. He bent over the access board and entered some commands, and footage began to appear on the monitors. Pidge watched his finger movements avidly, and in seconds she had picked up exactly how to use the controls.

Shiro stood just off to the side from the door, his gaze fixed on the monitors. Three of them showed the feeds from outside of Hunk, Keith, and Lance's rooms. He recognized those right away. Other monitors showed hallways at various angles, an exterior door, some outside angles. He presumed that all of these cameras were necessary to view the path the kidnappers had taken when they moved his teammates out of the base. From the scattered words he picked up between Pidge and Alkaric, his assumption was confirmed.

There. Movement at one of the bedroom doors. Shiro stared, unable to look away. A small squad of Malkordans in dark clothes and masks emerged from the door, all moving swiftly and efficiently. In the middle of the group... Lance. He was wearing his turquoise blue pajamas. No slippers. They hadn't given him time. And...a bag over his head. Shiro's breath caught in his throat. How _dare_ they.

As Shiro watched, Lance shook his head desperately as if trying to dislodge it, and one of the Malkordans struck him on the back of the head, snapping it forward on his neck. Lance's fists clenched, but he seemed stunned for the moment, and they hustled him down the hallway as he sagged with his bare feet dragging on the floor. His arms were being held by two Malkordans each side, gloved fingers digging in and creasing his flesh and bunching up the sleeves of his shirt. Another walked behind him as rear guard, while two or three ran ahead to open doors and provide cover with their guns.

It was very quick, only flashing on that screen for a handful of seconds. Then Shiro had to switch his gaze to another monitor to watch them drag him down a hall. Then another hall at a different angle, then another. Near the end, Lance apparently recovered from the earlier blow and fought back again, and they retaliated just as brutally as before. In the exterior shot, they dumped him into the back of a vehicle that reminded Shiro of an unmarked black van, except that this one didn't have wheels. It sped off, and the infiltrators went back into the building.

Hunk's room. Keith's. Different vehicles carried away each of them. The same squad had kidnapped all three boys consecutively? Yes, they were quick and efficient, but that was still _three_ trips that the same group of interlopers had taken through a supposedly heavily guarded military base. How had they escaped detection for so long? Where were the guards? Shiro's head hurt, and he realized that he was grinding his teeth together and made himself stop. He had assumed that the kidnappers had grabbed all three of his teammates at the same time and taken them out together. This, though... This made much less sense than his hypothetical scenario.

The only reason he could imagine for the separate trips was because the rebel group, or whatever it was, was actually very small, so they couldn't spare the manpower to attack all three rooms at once. Yet they still had the confidence to take all three pilots instead of just one. So they hadn't worried about being in the base for so long. As if...as if they knew they had all the time in the world.

Because they knew the Malkordan military would let them do whatever they wanted.

Shiro felt sick. He looked at Alkaric, saw his face blank and neutral, apparently unbothered. But there was a twitch in the tips of his fingers as he stood at Pidge's side, watching her scroll through the footage. Shiro looked back at the screens.

The timestamps... Yeah. This had definitely been three consecutive trips made by the same squad of about eight enemy soldiers. Alkaric had been trying to keep Shiro and Pidge from looking at this footage for as long as possible. Maybe he had been waiting for someone to doctor the footage and make it look like all three attacks had happened simultaneously, to prevent the suspicions that Shiro was having now.

Or maybe it was all in his head. Shiro knew he could be paranoid sometimes. Hypervigilance, they had called it in his psych classes back at Galaxy Garrison. This was such a strange, subtle thing for him to be so worried about. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was reading into it. Maybe his PTSD was jacking things up for him again.

Maybe not, though. Pidge was suspicious too. She had said so, and now she was frowning at the monitors as her gaze flipped from one to the other. He needed to talk to her, get her thoughts. Preferrably with Alkaric not in the room, but Shiro kind of doubted that the guy would leave them alone. He called himself their escort, their liaison, but he acted more like a prissy, suffocating bodyguard.

This would be so much easier if Shiro could bypass this entire process. Forget the footage, forget talking to the analysts and commanders, forget making a plan. Just bring the green and black lions down here and smash things until they found their people. Sure, that would ruin their chances of ever being allies with the Malkordans, as well as cause tons of property damage and traumatize the citizenry, and those were definitely bad things. But Shiro would get his boys back, and that was all he really cared about at the moment.

The problem was that he didn't know where to start smashing. If he had a _location,_ anything... Even just an idea. Somewhere to start. But the unmarked vehicles in the footage gave him nothing to work with. He was going to have to depend on the Malkordans to figure out where to go, and Shiro chafed at being dependent on people he did not trust.

His teeth were grinding together again. He made them stop.

Then the comm in his helmet crackled, and Coran's voice came on. "Shiro, are you there?" his voice was urgent and strained. "I have some news for you, though I'm not sure how useful it is..."

Shiro's heart jumped in his chest. "Yes, Coran? I'm here." He cast a wary glance at Alkaric, then stepped the door and moved partway into the hall. He kept his foot in the door to keep it open and trained a wary eye on Pidge, but focused the rest of his attention on Coran. Hopefully Alkaric wouldn't be able to hear him with his face toward the hall like this. "Did the scanners pick anything up?"

"Sorry, no." Coran's voice was heavy. He didn't like saying it anymore than Shiro liked hearing it. "The Malkordan bio-signatures are too close to human, and the population is too dense, for me to pick up any differences in this area. But something else happened. As I said, I don't know if it will be helpful, but I thought you should know."

"What is it?"

"Well, remember how I told you that the yellow, blue, and red lions were agitated when I checked on them this morning cycle? Their paladins are too far away for the lions to communicate with them at this distance from the planet, but the lions definitely know that something is wrong. And their urge to protect is affecting them, though they have no way to actually use it."

"Yeah, I remember." A surge of frustration moved through Shiro's chest. He knew how the lions felt.

"Well, something told me to go check on Blue again, though I can't say why. And she...she's not just agitated, not anymore. She's pacing her hangar constantly now. When I entered the door, she whipped around to look at me, lowered her head, and _roared."_

Shiro blinked. "That...that's unusual. It's unusual, right?"

"Highly. The lions are usually only capable of independent movement when their pilots are not only in imminent danger, but the lions are nearby and have some means of preventing it. The fact that Blue is pacing her hangar while the red lion and yellow lion are both still semi-dormant must mean that something has changed. It's as if... As if she was able to talk to Lance, somehow, even though the distance is too great. As if she knew where he is and wanted to go to him. There... There were claw marks on the inner doors of her hangar, Shiro. She was trying to scratch her way out."

Shiro caught his breath. This was both horrible and amazing to contemplate. The idea of a giant mechanical lion pacing her hangar like a flesh-and-blood lion in a too-small cage... It tugged at his heart and fired his veins.

"Is... Coran. Is it possible that she actually is able to communicate with Lance somehow? That she knows he's in danger and feels compelled to save him? I thought you said the distance is too great."

"It _is."_ Coran sounded frustrated, too. "This defies everything we've ever known about the lions. And if she could truly communicate with Lance and knew where he was and what was wrong, trust me, no hangar door would stand in her way. She would have blasted it away and flown to find him. Lions of Voltron do not care about collateral damage when their paladins are in danger. It was as if she heard him for a moment, but then the communication was cut off, so now she doesn't know where to go. But she is aware that her pilot is in mortal jeopardy, and so she cannot be still."

Shiro was silent for a moment, thinking about this. "All right. Thank you for the information, Coran."

Coran blew out a sigh. "I just wish I could do more. The idea of those boys in enemy hands..."

"Yeah." Shiro was upset, Pidge was upset, Coran was upset. Allura, over at the parliament building treating with the Malkordan government, was upset too. And of course the lions were upset. Of course.

Pidge looked over her shoulder to meet his eye, her gaze worried and questioning. She wanted to know why he had stepped out, what was going on. Shiro bit his lip. He should get back in there, deal with Alkaric so she didn't have to. He didn't want to.

Then something lit in his mind, a spark. "Coran..."

Coran's voice changed, hearing the difference in Shiro. "Yes? I'm still here."

"Blue is still pacing in her hangar, right? She hasn't stopped moving?"

"Correct. It's restless and purposeless, though. She doesn't know where to go."

Shiro smiled. "I have an idea."

It might not work. But it would be a lot faster than waiting for Alkaric and the Malkordans. The frustrated energy in Shiro's chest began to settle. It would have to work. They would make it work.

Coran was silent for a moment. "You want to open the hangar doors and let Blue out, hoping that the communication will somehow happen again and she'll be able to find Lance."

"It's worth a shot, right? Or maybe Green and Black can guide her to the surface, until she gets within normal range of Lance and can track him from there."

"I don't think it's possible to guide a lion of Voltron without a pilot. Their independent movement is normally very limited."

"Yeah, you said. But these are unusual circumstances, right? We have to try unusual strategies. And maybe Blue will surprise us. Maybe if you open the hangar doors, she'll just fly directly to Lance on her own."

"Or she might start doing the equivalent of the restless pacing, except out in space. She could move aimlessly until she gets even further out of range, so even if Lance is able to reach through the bond somehow again, she won't be able to hear him."

Shiro grimaced. "Okay. Yeah, that's a possibility, too. But we gotta try, Coran. This is... The process to get to them on the surface is going to take too long, I can tell. The Malkordans _just_ let me and Pidge finally look at the security footage five doboshes ago. And we have no idea how long it's going to take to track down the kidnappers. I can't... I can't let them stay in evil hands for one second longer than necessary, Coran. I can't. You know what they're probably going through right now. Especially if Blue is this agitated from a short, cut-off communication with Lance."

Coran groaned. "Yes, I know." His voice softened. "I know."

Shiro closed his eyes for a second. He opened his eyes and looked at Pidge, who was watching him steadily now and ignoring Alkaric and the monitors. "Coran. Please."

"All right," Coran said. His voice was brisk, decision made. "We'll try it your way. Would you like me to simply open the hangar doors now and see what happens? Or will you and Pidge come back to the castle in the pod ship to try to guide her? I warn you, this situation is a complete unknown. I have no idea how Blue might react to this. If you try to push her with Green or Black, she might lash out or try to escape, since all of her instincts are focused on saving her pilot, instead of working as a team. Your efforts might be better used remaining with the Malkordans and trying to work with the military to rescue our boys."

Shiro was tempted. Truly, deeply tempted. He wanted to leave this place, go back to the castle and get in his lion, where he could attack this problem head-on. But Coran was right. If the idea of letting Blue take the lead didn't work out, Pidge and Shiro would just be wasting time that would be better spent down here, trying to work through channels.

But could they afford to let Blue go without even attempting to guide her? What if it really was like letting a lion out of a cage? The Voltron lions were ancient, semi-sentient beings of power and magic, and none of them truly understood what they were, who they were. Blue could fly away and never come back, and then the most powerful weapon in the universe would be effectively disabled. Worst scenario, Zarkon could win, all because of a bad decision made right here and now.

Shiro's heart was beating too fast. He made himself pause, close his eyes and drag in a deep breath, let it out slowly. Then another one.

When it came down to it, this was Lance's lion. Shiro had to think like him. What would Lance do in this situation?

Looking at it like that, the answer became clear. Lance would trust Blue. No matter the odds, no how matter slim the chance of success, when it came to trusting his lion or his team, Lance would take the leap of faith without hesitation and never look back. It was who Lance was, and therefore, it was who Blue was, too.

Shiro opened his eyes. "Let her go," he said. "Pidge and I will stay down here and try to work with the Malkordans. We'll find them. Us or Blue or both. Nothing less is acceptable."

"Understood," Coran said. His voice was warm and rich. He knew how Shiro had come to his decision, and he agreed wholeheartedly. "Opening the hangar doors now. Good luck with the Malkordans."

"Thanks, Coran." They were going to need it.

Shiro stepped back into the room with Pidge and Alkaric.


	5. Chapter 5

The Malkordans had taken Keith half an hour ago. Lance was trying not to think about it. They would bring him back. They had to. They'd brought back Hunk and Lance, after all. Apparently Lance hadn't even been gone that long, though he couldn't remember it himself. They must have kept the machine going until he slipped completely into unconsciousness, since the last thing he remembered was overwhelming pain in his head, his whole body, and the sense that Blue was screaming with him.

He shuddered and curled up tighter into Hunk's body, working the tool into the cuff with more determination than ever. Hunk's wrists were still fastened to the floor, and eventually even sitting grew to be too tiring, so he had laid himself on the floor with his bound wrists in front of his face. Lance lay down next to him, rolled into a ball with his head pressing Hunk's chest and his knees drawn up between the press of their two bodies. Every muscle in Lance's body still felt cramped and overworked from the electricity that had passed through them, and the only thing that brought relief was curling into the fetal position like this. At least his nose had stopped bleeding.

"Tell me about what you're gonna make for us to eat when we get out of here, Hunkalicious," Lance said. He needed the sound of Hunk's voice, and Hunk needed the distraction. They also needed to cover up the sound of Lance trying to force what was basically a prison shiv into a highly advanced, highly complex piece of technology attached to his wrist.

Hunk hummed. "We still have some of those Danberian baking mixes back at the Castle of Lions. I was thinking maybe I would try for a cake again. I know the last try wasn't great, ended up way too dense and hard. It was more like a scone than a cake."

"It was still delicious," Lance said absently. "Everything you make is delicious."

"I appreciate that, sweetheart, but you know it's not true."

"It is," Lance insisted. "But tell me about the cake."

"Okay. Well, I'm thinking that maybe the problem was the eggs. The Danberian flour is a lot heavier than wheat flour on Earth, so that was why it didn't react the way we usually expect, and I can't raise the proportion of baking soda and acid any more or it will start affecting the flavor. But I can do the eggs differently, right? I'll beat the yolks in with the fat and sweetener, go for ribbon stage, and whip the whites separately. Eggs are fundamentally the same across most species on Earth, so space eggs are probably similar. Same protein structures in the whites, should be. So you whip that up with some salt and a little hit of acid, and the protein structures break apart and gradually reform, stretch along different lines, right, and that's how you get meringue."

"You're gonna put a meringue in a cake?" Lance was only barely following, focused so intently on the cuff on his wrist, hidden between his chest and Hunk's. His left wrist was resting on the floor, right hand holding their precious tool as he worked by feel, trying to find an opening.

Before Keith was taken, they had both taken turns rubbing the little metal strip on the floor, working one end as thin as they could get it. Now it was razor sharp and almost paper thin for a good inch or so. If anything would fit between the edge of the indicator light and the rest of the cuff, this should be it. At least, this was the only thing they were going to get their hands on that might do it.

But he couldn't make it fit. He'd been trying since they took Keith, and he just...he couldn't get it in. He'd been slowly working his way around the cuff, trying every fraction of an inch on both sides of the light strip. He was hoping for one place, just one, where there might be the smallest bit of a gap. No luck so far, but Lance wasn't giving up until he'd tried every single possibility. And then if nothing worked, he was going to start over from the beginning to double check. And then he would do it again.

Hunk chuckled, warm and low in his chest. He drew up his own legs, curving around Lance's fetal ball as much as he could. Lance hummed in appreciation, glad for the added warmth. The floor was cold, and the only heat they had was each other.

"Not a meringue, silly," Hunk said gently. "I'll whip the eggs to stiff peaks, but not for meringue. That's just a stage. Then I'll fold it into the batter, right? Slow, gentle movements, turn the bowl a quarter turn after each fold, bring the batter up from the bottom and fold it gently in, keep as much as air as possible in the mixture. So when I'm done it'll be all light and fluffy and sweet. And then I'll bake it, see what happens. Might rise up like a souffle. Might make a decent sponge cake. Might collapse right away like a house of cards. But it'll be worth a try."

"If anyone can make a cake out of weird, alien space ingredients, it's my main man Hunky-Dory," Lance said loyally. "What flavor will you go for first?"

"Hmm. Have to get a good basic recipe before I try to doll it up at all. So, with the yolks included, it'll be a plain yellow cake." Hunk sighed. "I wish I could get some butter for it, but we ran out of that awhile back."

"They must have some kind of butter here on Malkord," Lance said. "There was that dessert we had last night... It tasted kind of buttery, didn't it? Though not, like, cow butter. Something else."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Hunk said thoughtfully. "Well, even if the Malkordan dairy isn't quite like cow, if I can get a stock of their butter I can try making it into ghee. You know, brown off the solids, leave us with just the clarified butter. It's easy to do, and it would strain out most of the differences between space dairy and Earth dairy, lactose and casein and all that stuff. Ghee is just the fat, so if it comes from any kind of dairy, space ghee should be pretty similar to Earth ghee."

"Right, so, when you were talking about mixing the fat and sweetener..."

"Creaming, right. Usually when you're making a cake you want to cream together the butter and the sugar. The fat coats the sugar and keeps the grains separate, which makes for a fluffier, lighter product. Works with cookies, too. Then you add the eggs and any flavoring, on Earth usually vanilla extract, and you mix the dry ingredients separately and add them alternately with the liquid to make a batter."

"Is the sweetener you have anything like cane sugar back home? Will that affect the cake?"

"Eh, it's pretty close. Back on that tropical planet, you remember the fruits that reminded us of coconuts, but sweeter? I've been able to refine a kind of palm sugar from that stuff."

"Mmm." Lance's mouth was watering. "Abuelita made the best hot chocolate with palm sugar back home."

Hunk's voice was fond. "Do you mean the brand of chocolate, or your actual grandma?"

"Both." Lance had meant this topic to distract Hunk, but now he was the one getting distracted. He shook his head and focused on the cuff again. "Okay, back to the subject. Food science. Talk nerdy to me, Incredible Hunk."

Hunk tucked his face down against Lance's hair so Lance could feel his smile, and he did. He meandered from subject to subject, comparing all kinds of ingredients they had found in space to what he remembered from Earth. Lance didn't always understand what he was talking about, but he loved the enthusiasm in Hunk's voice. He loved how smart he was, his broad knowledge base of everything he found interesting, the way he socked facts away in his big engineering brain the way Lance accumulated trinkets in his room.

He loved the way Hunk loved to cook. It wasn't just because Hunk liked to eat, because he derived pleasure and comfort from the consumption of delicious foodstuffs, but also because he loved sharing with his friends, his family, even strangers they met along the way. Food to Hunk wasn't just about survival, getting by from day to day, or even about finding something good in the trainwreck their lives had become. It was also about making connections, bringing people together, and sharing as much happiness and joy as they could get away with.

The Malkordans couldn't take that away. No one could. Fierce pride lit up Lance's chest, despite the ache in his head, his wrists, his entire body. The Malkordans could beat them and cut them and electrocute them and chain them to the floor, but they couldn't break them. Not him, not Hunk, not Keith. They were going to make it through this. They were going to be fine.

Something clicked. Lance went still, frozen against Hunk with his head down. He'd found something, a gap on the cuff. "Hunk," he murmured. He switched to ubbi dubbi, which they were both fluent in. _"Don't stop talking, but I think I found something."_

Hunk kept talking away about food, but he put a "keep going" in there. So Lance dug in. He had no idea what he was doing. This would be so much better if Hunk's hands were free so he could do this. He would be able to figure it out. Lance was flying blind.

He couldn't slide the tool back and forth at all. It was stuck way down in a gap on the edge of the light strip, deeply lodged into the cuff. It was in the most awkward spot possible, too, on the outside edge of Lance's wrist, opposite the thumb. But he'd found it. He'd found something.

He couldn't move the tool back and forth in the gap, which had been his initial idea. Stick the tool into a gap, then slide it all the away around the light strip and pop it out. Not possible. But he could...he could _angle_ the tool instead, digging it down into the machinery of the cuff like it was a needle first poking a hole, then widening the hole it had made. No idea if he was accomplishing anything, but he could force movement down there.

He felt the tip of the tool scraping against things in there, small bits and parts. Sometimes the resistance was great than others. No idea what he was touching down there, didn't feel like metal, maybe some kind of polymer? But the cuff had to be some kind of a electromagnet to work the way it did, right? He should find a coil of metal wire in there, something. Maybe he could knock it out of alignment, chip it away from the internal mechanism, even disconnect the power source...

Lance wasn't an expert on electromagnets by any means, but he knew the basics, because in their first year at Galaxy Garrison, Hunk had gone through a Phase. That was the thing about Hunk. He wasn't quite a prodigy like Pidge, but he was very, very smart, and he was _fascinated_ by a wide range of subjects.

Hunk's life was basically a long series of obsessions, in which he became extremely interested in something or other and spent days or even weeks researching it, packing away all the info he could find into his brain box. Then he reworked it in his head, applied it to other things, and spit it all out in new and exciting ways. And he was a talker. When he was interested in something, when he was learning and his brain was buzzing with ideas and concepts and thoughts, he had to let it out. Lance didn't know how many evenings and nights and lunch breaks and walks in the hall he had spent listening to his roommate babble on about something or other.

Lance had an unfortunate habit of tuning most of it out, after a while. It was just...it was too much. Lance was a good student and got high grades mostly by dint of working really, really hard, but he didn't have Hunk's obsessive personality, and he didn't share all of his interests. Hunk just had...so many. So many interests.

But Lance tried to be a good friend, most of the time. He made interested noises, ums and ohs and ah-has while Hunk was going on and on about something, even if he wasn't really listening. Sometimes, though, if Lance was busy or had something else he wanted to do or to talk about, he got exasperated and made disgusted, bored noises until Hunk stopped.

The first few times, Hunk had been embarrassed and tried to apologize for being annoying, but Lance waved him off. He got that Hunk needed to talk about his latest obsession with non-Newtonian fluids or whatever and he would totally listen, no really, just _not right this minute,_ okay? As they grew closer and got to know each other better, Hunk began to take Lance's moods in stride. Sometimes he kept talking even when Lance didn't want him to, which was _rude._ But it also made Lance happy, because it meant that his sometimes shy, sometimes anxious friend was completely comfortable in his presence, enough to even ignore him when he was being a jerk.

Now, Lance very rarely got tired of Hunk's babbling anymore. He found it endearing. Even when he had no idea what the guy was talking about, it was still fun to see him bright-eyed and happy. It was fun to egg him on, work him up into even greater heights of deeply nerdy weirdness. Lance loved doing that, loved being part of it. Loved that Hunk trusted him with that side of himself.

So yeah, early on in their friendship, Hunk had gotten interested in electromagnets and talked about nothing else for a couple of weeks. Lance had kind of been forced to absorb at least something from it.

This cuff... It had to be an electromagnet. Even a highly advanced, very compressed one, to be this small and powerful. The fact that the Malkordans could turn it on and off remotely meant that it had to have a power source housed inside the cuff, and if Lance could disconnect that... That would do it. No more cuff.

They would still be stuck in a cold, bare cell, but they would be able to use their hands. They could fight back. They could try to rush the door the next time the guards came to take one of them away. They could get Hunk's hands off the floor, so he could sit up and stretch his arms, scratch his nose without having to ask Lance to do it. That was what Lance wanted the most of all. The poor guy had to be really cramped and uncomfortable at this point, but he didn't utter one word of complaint. Lance loved him for it, he really did, but enough was enough.

He kept digging, wiggling the tool around down in the cuff. It all felt a little too desperate, a little unfocused, but Lance was completely intent on this task. Hunk's voice washed over him, warm and deep and comforting, and Lance fell into a bit of trance. It was as if he was feeling through the tool now, like it had become an extension of his finger. He brushed over the tiny parts inside the cuff, touching them one at a time, feeling out their shapes, their distances from each other, the differences in the give and pliability of each one.

And...there. It felt like a wire. Lance moved the tool in a swift, decisive movement, and he could have sworn he _heard_ it snap. It was broken. And Lance knew, he was sure, that he had disconnected the power source. The next time they activated his cuffs, this one wouldn't work. He knew it.

"Hunk," he murmured. "I did it."

Hunk didn't respond in words. But he smiled against Lance's hair again, and he curled up closer and kissed his forehead. That was all the praise Lance needed.

Now he just had to wait for proof. Wait for them to bring Keith back, make sure that his right cuff activated and his left one didn't. Then he would know for sure. Lance set the tool down on the floor and tried to relax against Hunk, waiting.

Hunk eventually trailed off, running out of words. They lay there quietly for a few moments, cuddling on the cold floor of a prison cell. It wasn't terrible. At least they could still touch each other. Hunk blew out a slow, soft breath. "Lance?"

Lance hummed in acknowledgement. His eyes were sliding shut.

"Don't fall asleep, okay?" Hunk's voice was gentle but insistent.

Lance opened his eyes wide, like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. "I won't."

"I'm worried about what that electricity did to you. To your brain. I think you should stay awake until we get out of here and Coran can check you out."

Lance snuggled his face into Hunk's chest and smiled. "I'm fine. It's okay. But I'll stay awake and keep you company. I know it must be hard to rest with your hands bolted to the floor."

Hunk made a displeased noise and nudged him with his knee. "I'm serious. You didn't see yourself when they first brought you back. You were...you were unconscious, and we couldn't wake you up for what felt like a really, really long time. It was scary. I don't want you to pass out again."

"Hunk. I promise I'm okay." Lance squirmed up and stuck his head between Hunk's arms so he could smile into his face. "Everything's going to be fine. They'll bring Keith back, and he's gonna be hurt, but okay. And Shiro and Pidge and Coran and Allura are looking for us right now, I'm sure of it. They're gonna find us. We'll be out of here before the sun goes down. I know it."

Hunk's eyes softened. "I know you believe that. But I..."

"You can't help worrying. I know." Lance shrugged against the floor. "It's who you are. You worry and fret and imagine all the worst-case scenarios there are, but when push comes to shove, you're strong as a mountain and brave as a bear."

Hunk sighed. "Lance..."

"Don't worry about me." Lance pushed his face forward again and rested his head under Hunk's chin. He put his right arm around him, too, hooking under Hunk's armpit. He kept his left wrist hidden on the floor between their bodies so the cameras wouldn't see it when the indicator light didn't turn on.

He patted Hunk's back and wished that Hunk could hug him. As if sensing this, Hunk tucked his chin over Lance's head and curled around him as much as he could. The instant Lance knew for sure that he'd succeeded in deactivating his left cuff, he was gonna do his right cuff, then Hunk's and Keith's. He would have to be sneaky about it, and Hunk would still have to stay on the floor until they were ready to strike. But for now, all he could do was wait.

He was tired. But he'd promised Hunk that he wouldn't go to sleep. Instead, he let his mind drift, and without meaning to he found himself reaching for Blue again.

It was habit, now. After more than a year of partnership, Lance could feel Blue's presence no matter where he was in the castle, and he liked reaching out to her. At random intervals, whenever he felt like it, sometimes for no reason at all. Anytime day or night, he basically waved his hand in Blue's metaphorical face and bombarded her with his current feelings and thoughts, like some kind of brain vomit. Blue always accepted him and never thought he was annoying or stupid, never told him to shut up or tone it down, never got tired of listening to him chatter. Instead, she seemed enthusiastic and happy, every single time. Even _Hunk_ got tired of Lance's neverending bull occasionally, so Blue was pretty much the most amazing being in the entire universe just for that.

He knew he was too far away right now. He always kind of quietly resented these missions that separated him from Blue, which was silly, so he would never tell anyone, but still. It didn't feel good to keep reaching out like this, on habit, and find nothing but the cold, empty buzz of too much distance. But he couldn't make himself stop. At least these missions didn't usually last too long.

But this time, it was different. Yeah, the distance was definitely too great, but he swore that he could _almost_ touch Blue, even so. The usual cold buzz of emptiness seemed warmer than usual, more alive. He couldn't talk to her, not really, but he got the feeling that she was angry and upset. And...searching for him?

Blue was searching for him. Lance blinked against Hunk's chest, his breath stuttering in his throat. She was still too far away, but she was looking. She wanted to come. She wanted to save him.

The bond had never been quite like this before. The Malkordans, with that machine...had they done something permanent to him? To his brain? Maybe the effects of the super-charge weren't just temporary.

That would...that would be _awesome._ Lance had a weird urge to thank them.

Then he remembered what they had done to Hunk, what they were doing to Keith right now, and he changed his mind.

He felt the tingle in his wrist that meant the cuff was about to activate. Only the right wrist, though. Lance fought down the yell of the triumph that wanted to burst out of his mouth and quickly pulled his hand back to his body so he wouldn't hurt Hunk when the cuff rocketed to the floor. That unpleasant buzz, a loud thunk, and there he was, stuck to the floor. Lance gasped at the shock of it against his bruised and aching muscles, even though he'd done his best to minimize the fall.

But his left wrist. Lance stared down at it, almost hidden between his chest and Hunk's. He rocked his hand back and forth on the floor. His left wrist moved. The indicator light wasn't on.

He had succeeded in deactivating the cuff.

Then a horrified gasp jerked out of Hunk's mouth, and Lance twisted his head around to look at the door. They were bringing Keith in. At least Keith was conscious, barely, hanging between the two goons like a sack of meat, but... Blood. There was a lot of blood. Too much blood.

"What did you _do_ to him?" Lance yelled, almost breathless with fury. His right wrist tugged on the cuff as he tried to roll over and sit up, and it hurt, it _hurt,_ but he didn't care.

The guards let go of Keith, and his knees collapsed beneath him, just like that, unable to hold up his weight. His eyes were wide and rolling with shock and pain, and he folded up in a ball and thumped down sideways onto the floor. His head struck last, with a nasty crack that made Lance wince and Hunk flinch. Hunk's entire body was stiff and trembling with tension, and Lance was so angry that he could barely see.

"Let me go!" he yelled at the corner of the room, at the ceiling, at wherever the camera was. "Let me go, let me go, I gotta stop the bleeding!"

They made him wait. Made him wait as the guards took their time leaving and the door finally shut again and the sound of the lock filled the room like the fall of a boulder, trapping them in a lightless, airless cave. Finally, finally, Lance's cuff released, and he ducked out of Hunk's arms and scrambled to Keith.

"Keith! Where is this blood coming from? Do you know?" Lance grabbed Keith's shoulders and tried to pull him onto his back so he could have a look, but Keith groaned and curled up harder in an attempt to shield himself. He seemed out of it, but he was conscious enough to respond. Lance pulled back as if he had been burned and knelt there gaping at Keith for a moment. His heart was racing. He didn't know what to do. Blood was beginning to collect on the floor under Keith's body, not enough to call a puddle but definitely more than a splash.

"Keith!" Lance tried again, and this time Keith was too weak to resist him. He got him over on his back, hands shaking, and was finally able to view the utter mess that was the front of Keith's body. His shirt was absolutely shredded, dark strips of fabric mingling with the blood still leaking from his chest and abdomen. It was a gruesome sight. Behind him, Lance heard Hunk gagging.

Lance hesitated, hands hovering in the air over Keith's body. Keith blinked up at him, dazed and pale. How much blood had he lost? How much could he afford to lose? He could go into shock from this. He could go into shock and _die_ because their enemies had locked them in this chilly prison cell with no first aid kit, no bandages, no supplies, not even a _blanket._

"Lance, you gotta calm down," Hunk's voice. He sounded wavery and shaky himself, but he was trying, and that was what counted. "You can't panic. You're the only one who can help him. You have to step up. You can do it, babe, I know you can."

Lance pulled in a deep, shuddery breath that jarred his chest and burned in his throat. Keith stared up at him, eyes glazed and distant, barely aware of his presence. Hunk was right. He had to do this. No one else could.

All right. First step first. Lance surveyed the ravaged landscape of Keith's torso. He had to see the damage first, figure out where the blood was coming from so he could determine the best course of action. "Keith, I'm gonna touch you, okay? It might hurt. Please stay as still as you can."

Keith blinked, then nodded. He stared at Lance without blinking. It was a little unnerving, but Lance could take it. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and pulled in another hard breath, then reached out.

He tried to be gentle, picking the pieces of shredded shirt out of the cuts that criss-crossed Keith's chest and stomach as delicately as possible, but Keith still groaned and shuddered at his touch. He didn't move, though, not much. Just a few little jerks of his shoulders as he fought to keep still. Gradually, but as quickly as he dared, Lance cleaned the ruined cloth out of Keith's many wounds, pushing it to the sides, onto the floor. When he finished, he sat back on his heels for a moment and stared.

Keith was covered in wounds from his neck to his waist. They had been made with some sort of blade, cuts and slashes, some short, some long. Most of them were pretty shallow, but they had all bled a lot. A couple of them looked deeper, and those were still leaking bright red, sluggish and alarming. In fact, most of the cuts needed attention of some sort, but Lance had to do triage.

"Okay. Okay. I can do this." Lance took off his own shirt, hands shaking in his haste. He left bloody fingerprints on everything he touched, but it didn't matter. The cloth was about to get a whole lot bloodier. He folded the shirt into a rectangular compress, then looked over Keith's body again, trying to figure out which cut was the worst. There were at least three particularly bad ones to choose from.

He met Keith's eyes for a moment. "I'm going to put pressure on your wounds, okay? I gotta stop the bleeding. It's probably gonna hurt, but I gotta."

Keith's eyelids fluttered weakly, but he managed a nod. Lance nodded back, then looked back to his wounds.

Okay, that one. Lance picked a long slash that went in a diagonal path from Keith's lower rib cage to his left hipbone. He put his folded pajama shirt against the flow of red and pressed down. Hard.

Keith moaned and shuddered. His fingers twitched against the cold floor. But he made no other objection. Lance pressed as hard as he could, tears pricking the corners of his eyes. His arms shook, and he cursed his weakness, the fact that the Malkordans had seen fit to abuse every single muscle in his body before they did this to Keith. It made things so much harder.

"Hunk," Lance gasped. "Talk. Tell us a story, sing us a song. Something. Please." He couldn't stand to listen to Keith's little whimpers of pain, not for a second longer.

Hunk made a choking sound, but he did it. He couldn't seem to gather his wits for a story, so he sang. He started singing a silly pop song that had been on the radio a lot right before they fell into that cavern and found Blue. Lance and Hunk liked to play a radio station on the computer in their room while they studied together, and this song had compelled them to get up and dance around the room on more than one occasion.

Hunk's voice was shaky, but grew stronger as he continued. The chorus was particularly earwormy, and Lance sometimes loved it, sometimes hated it. _Just the beat of my heart, just the beat of my heart, just the beat beat beat of my heart heart heart heart..._

Today, it was grating. Lance was kneeling here watching Keith bleed out on the floor, and another surge of blood seemed to leave his body with every repetition in that stupid, stupid chorus. The cloth in Lance's hands was soaking through with red already, and while he held it there with all his strength, he had to watch the other cuts bleed without intervention. He needed more hands.

"No," he blurted, voice rasping and harsh. Hunk stopped singing, though Lance hadn't really been talking to him. He turned his head and looked up at the ceiling, the walls, the corners, glaring with all the fury he had in him. "I can't do it alone," he said. Then he yelled. "I can't do it alone! Do you want the Red Paladin to die? He will, unless you give me more. Give me something, bandages, supplies, whatever. Or at least let Hunk go! Let the Yellow Paladin go! I need his hands! The Red Paladin will die if you don't let him go, and then how will you ever learn how to pilot a lion of Voltron?"

For a long moment, there was silence. Lance glared at the wall. Keith's lips pressed together as he tried to stifle his noises of pain. Then Hunk gasped, and there was an almost inaudible change in the air, the low hum of his cuffs gone as they deactivated. Lance badly wanted to pump his fists in triumph, but he didn't dare move his hands.

In seconds Hunk was there, kneeling on Keith's other side. He looked him over with wide eyes, visibly gulping down nausea. Hunk had never been good with blood. Or other bodily fluids. Lance felt bad, asking this of him, but he didn't have a choice.

"Are your hands okay, buddy?" he asked.

Hunk looked down at his hands, squeezing his fingers into his palms in a rhythmic motion. "A little...a little numb. But feeling is coming back." He hissed through his teeth, fingers spasming for a moment, and Lance's heart lurched into his throat. But Hunk shook his head, still pumping his hands. "'Sokay. Pins and needles."

Lance grimaced in sympathy, but then he nodded down at Keith. "The big gash on the right side of his chest. Please."

Hunk nodded briskly, all business now that Lance had given him a job. He stripped off his own shirt and tore it in half, choosing to do it along the waist for some reason, then folded the top half into a compress and pressed it against the bleeding cut. Keith whined a bit in protest, squirming under the sudden touch, but then he went still again and just blinked at the ceiling.

Lance stared down at the compress under his hands. It wasn't completely soaked, and no more red seemed to be flowing into it, at least at the moment. Still, he couldn't release the pressure. He didn't dare lift his hands to see if the bleeding was slowing. In normal circumstances, when performing first aid for someone with a bleeding wound, you would sit there and keep pressure until emergency services arrived.

They needed bandages. They needed antiseptic and gauze and elastic and aspirin and pain-relieving cream and everything else that would be in a standard first aid kit back on Earth. Or an Altean cryo-replenisher, that would be nice. But they had none of that. Just two scared, desperate kids in borrowed pajamas, kneeling on the floor of a cold prison cell while their friend bled in front of them.

But Hunk was a total freaking hero. Of course. After his initial, very quiet freakout, he buckled down to the job. His eyes got hard and analytical, looking Keith over like he was a problem to be solved, but his hands were always gentle and compassionate, and his voice was soft.

Hunk had dextrous hands. After maintaining pressure on Keith's chest with both hands for several minutes, he shifted so only one hand held down the compress. With the other, he picked up the discarded half of his shirt. He wedged a corner under one foot and started tearing the cloth into strips. Suddenly, Lance understood why Hunk had torn the shirt horizontally instead of vertically. Longer strips.

"Okay," Hunk said, soothing and firm. "Keith, we're gonna need to sit you up, okay? Then we'll wrap up your chest and stomach, keep these cuts under pressure." One big hand folded under Keith's shoulder, the other still holding the cut on his chest. The cut Lance was tending was too big for him to let go with one hand, otherwise he would be reaching for Keith's shoulder, too.

"Keith?" Hunk asked. "Can you hear me?"

Keith blinked at him, then nodded. "I can sit up," he said, voice soft, a little wandering.

"I'll help you. Okay, let's do it. One, two, three, go."

Hunk pulled on his shoulder, smoothly but strongly, and Keith's abdominal muscles strained under Lance's hands. Keith grunted in pain and effort, his entire body tensing, but Hunk lifted him almost effortlessly, even with one hand. Upright, Keith started to slump, and Hunk's hold on his shoulder shifted to prop him up.

"Okay, okay. Good job, buddy. Can you hold this cloth on your chest while I start wrapping you?"

Keith nodded loosely, and Lance wasn't at all sure that he trusted this. But Keith's hands rose and pressed, and Hunk slowly let go, after making sure he was strong enough. Keith's hands shook, and it took both his hands to do what Hunk had done with one. Already, Lance thought he saw a little more blood leak into the yellow compress. He cast a wide-eyed look to Hunk, saw by his expression that he'd already noticed.

"Okay," Hunk said. "I'll have to be quick."

And he was. He removed the remnants of Keith's shredded shirt from his back and shoulders, then started swaddling him in strips of yellow pajama. Keith breathed slowly, staring into the distance and holding himself as straight as he could. When Hunk got to the compress on his chest, he gently shifted Keith's hands for him, until he could wrap it completely. Then Keith dropped his hands to his lap and just sat there.

Lance watched him, nibbling on his bottom lip in worry. It really did seem like Keith was in some kind of shock. He wasn't shivering or anything, but how were they gonna deal with this? They didn't even have a blanket to put around his shoulders.

Well, as ever, Lance's best offering was words. "Hey, Keith. You hearing me?"

Keith blinked and shifted his head to the side to look at him. "Mmm."

Lance grimaced, but he couldn't really think of anything else to talk about. "Do you remember what happened when they took you? Did they try to wipe your mind?"

Keith stared at him without blinking for a long moment. He seemed strangely fixated. Lance began to wonder if there was something on his face.

"Keith. Buddy. Are you with us?"

Keith frowned. "Your nose is bleeding."

Lance turned his head and rubbed his nose on his shoulder, then twisted his head to look at it. Yeah, there was a little smear of red, but it was nothing, barely a smudge. He looked back to Keith's face. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

Keith's frown deepened. He was still staring at Lance, focused and intent, and Lance realized that he was staring directly at his nose. "Make it stop."

Lance made an exasperated noise. "I can't help it, Keith. So it's bleeding again. Whatever. It's fine. We're a little more worried about you right now, okay?"

Keith glanced down at himself, at the bandages that Hunk was still pulling tight, one round at a time. He dismissed his own wounds with a small grunt and focused back on Lance's nose again. His eyes were glassy. "You need to stop bleeding."

"My hands are busy right now." Despite himself, Lance was getting annoyed. Trust Keith to get obsessed with the stupidest little thing that didn't matter at all. "And anyway, why don't _you_ stop bleeding, you jerk?"

"You first," Keith insisted.

"I _can't._ Shut _up."_

Hunk sighed. "Guys, please. You both need to stop bleeding. There is way too much blood on the floor."

Lance snorted, which actually hurt a little bit through his sore nose. But under his annoyance was a big pile of worry. Keith wasn't processing well. He really must be in shock.

He drew in a breath and tried to reorient himself, then looked to Keith's face. "Hey, Keith. Look at my eyes."

It was clearly a struggle, but Keith did his best to comply. He watched Lance steadily, just a hint of comprehension back.

"Let's talk about something else, okay? Do you know if they used the mind wipe on you? Do you remember everything that happened?"

Keith's forehead wrinkled in thought. Lance could almost see him thinking, _But your nose is bleeding and it should stop._ He didn't say that though, just sat still for moment as he deeply pondered Lance's question.

 _"_ I remember. I think... Yeah. I think I remember everything."

"So they didn't try to wipe your mind?" Lance repeated patiently.

Keith's gaze slid to his nose again. Lance cleared his throat, trying to bring him back, and Keith looked into his eyes. "No..." he said slowly. "I don't think so. I..."

Lance nodded, urging him to go on.

"I think they... They were in...in a hurry. Kept saying...running out of time. Probably didn't try the wipe because...takes too much time. They're gonna do us all at once, at the end. I think. That makes sense, right?"

Lance nodded more vigorously, trying to encourage him. A spatter of blood hit the floor. "Yeah, yeah. That totally makes sense. Do you have any idea why they thought they were running out of time? Were they always planning on just keeping us for a short while, or did their plans change? Could you tell, from the way they were talking?"

"Um." Keith closed his eyes for a moment, body jerking as Hunk hit a bad spot. He sucked in a breath, and Hunk apologized in the background, one large hand covering Keith's back for a moment. "It seemed...unplanned. They were..." Keith winced, and he looked at Lance with more comprehension. "They were in a hurry. The way they questioned me..."

Lance's face screwed up. He hadn't meant to ask about that part. He'd figured it could go without saying that the Malkordans had been interrogating Keith for information on how piloting the lions worked. What else would they be asking him?

"They were in a hurry," Keith repeated slowly. "They weren't...careful." He lifted a hand, slow, shaking, and rested it over Lance's, still holding the cut across his stomach. "If...if they were careful, I don't think they would have cut so deep. They were in a hurry."

Lance cursed under his breath. So Keith's wounds were worse than they should have been because his torturers were under pressure to hurry up and get the job done. Maybe that was why they had let Hunk go with very little persuasion. If they were still hoping to cover this up, return the three of them to Shiro and Pidge without revealing just who was behind this fiasco, it was in their interests to do as little damage as possible. While still getting what they wanted, of course.

"I'm sorry, man," Lance said with utter sincerity. "This sucks."

Keith gave him a faint smile, shuddering again as Hunk wrapped lower. "Understatement."

Lance rolled his eyes, but it was true. Hunk had gotten to Lance's compress, now, so he shifted his hands as Hunk continued to wrap. Soon Keith was swaddled like a mummy from armpits to waist, bigger lumps under the bandages where Lance's shirt and the other half of Hunk's shirt were hidden. Hunk finished with a square knot, boy-scout efficient, and a shiver passed over Keith's shoulders in response. In fact, he was starting to shiver all over. Hard.

Lance had been holding him, supporting him while Hunk worked, but now he carefully passed Keith over to lean against Hunk. He went back to the place where they'd been sitting to fetch Keith's jacket and brought it back, and he and Hunk helped him put it on. Keith was still shivering, slumped against Hunk's side with his eyes drooping, so Lance snuggled up against his other side, wrapping his arms around both of his buddies as far as they would go. Hunk mirrored him on the other side, and now they were a huddled lump of miserable, shivering flesh, two of them shirtless, one wrapped in bandages and a short jacket.

"Ugh," Lance said. It was a pretty eloquent summation of the situation, he thought. Hunk snorted in agreement.

They had to get out of here. They had to. Keith could die if he didn't get real medical attention. As soon as they got Keith warmed up, as soon as they were sure he wouldn't die of shock, Lance was going to maneuver them so he could disable all the cuffs without the cameras seeing.

And then? Well. Next time the Malkordans came to take one of them away, they were going to fight back.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N:** All right, this is the chapter with the particularly bad and triggering scene. I mean, the whole story is pretty bad and triggering, and there is a LOT of blood, but in this scene, Keith remembers specifics of when he was tortured. If you want to skip it, DON'T READ from the sentence "Keith remembered being taken, remembered a table, his arms being strapped down." to "But his vision was tilting, blurring in and out, and nothing seemed to be working right."

That said, though, this is a pretty exciting chapter, if I do say so myself. Next chapter is even better.

* * *

Keith's awareness slowly returned. He felt himself surrounded by warmth, a wall of breathing and kindness. Hunk and Lance were both beside him, holding him close. It felt...nice. His body ached and burned, a somewhat familiar pain, but there was so much of it, too much... He'd felt the ache and burn of cuts and bruises before, but never so deeply and so widespread.

He remembered being in this room with Hunk and Lance, remembered Hunk's hands fastened to the floor, Lance gone, then Lance returned... Lance had been bleeding from the nose, a flow of dark red that just wouldn't stop. He'd been unconscious, too, for far too long, and when he woke he was limp and confused. Hunk and Keith had cradled him between them, supporting him while Lance came back to himself.

Now Hunk and Lance were doing the same for him. Keith remembered being taken, remembered a table, his arms being strapped down. Then faces appearing before his vision, and a blade. A voice asked questions, and he bolted his mouth shut and refused to answer. The blade cut him. Shallowly at first. He made no sound. Another question. Another cut.

It kept happening. Eventually everything began to blur. But it hadn't been that hard to resist, really. Once Keith figured out a way to ride through the pain, to ignore it, to repress it the way he often repressed his unpleasant emotions... Once it worked once, he just had to keep doing it. After a while, the torture became almost...boring. They asked a question. He kept his mouth shut. They hurt him.

It did build up, eventually. The pain of each cut did not disappear after they inflicted it. It accumulated. Keith kept having to ignore more and more, pushing it all under, like sweeping trash under a rug. Eventually the pile became too big, and he was forced to acknowledge that it was there. He wanted to sweep it out the door instead, but more kept being shoveled in. It was all he could do to keep up.

By that time the pain was almost unbearable. He was getting close to making a noise, though he still knew that he would never say a word. Still, making a noise would be a kind of failure, too. He didn't want to do it. He wanted to refuse them absolutely, completely, give them no satisfaction at all for what they were doing to him. No reaction. No reaction.

But they cut too deep. He felt the blood leaving his body, dizziness overtaking him as his strength leaked away. His consciousness was failing. Soon he would not be able to speak at all, not by conscious choice but because his mouth would not be able to move.

That was when they tired of their fruitless quest. "Take him back to the cell," someone said. Corallis. "We'll try the yellow one again."

"Should we treat the wounds?" a male voice asked. "He bleeds more freely than a Malkordan. It might be too much."

Corallis snorted. "Let his fellows care for him. It will give them something to do, keep their minds off trying to escape."

"Yes, Commander."

Keith felt a hand on the side of his face and tried to jerk his head away. Corallis's touch followed him, burning, inescapable. She leaned down to speak into his ear, and Keith blinked at her, dazed.

"You will never escape," Corallis said, soft and low and very, very certain. "Don't bother trying. It's a waste of energy. And you and your fellow pilots need to conserve every bit of energy you have. Why do you think we haven't fed you, haven't given you water? It's better if you're weak. You'll break eventually. We'll never stop hurting you until you give us what you want."

She was right, in a way. Keith needed to conserve his energy for moments like this. He stared into her face, chest heaving hard enough that he could feel every cut and gash that pierced his flesh. He worked his jaw for a moment, gathering up the strength, then spat into her face.

Corallis jerked back, eyes closing for a moment. Her expression did not change, since it had already been practically demonic. But she turned wordlessly away and took the knife from the soldier who had been holding it. And she cut him again across his stomach, deep, too deep. Keith convulsed against his bonds, mouth opening and closing helplessly, silently. Then she stood back and watched him bleed.

She moved back to his head, grabbed a fistful of his hair. She dragged his head up as far as the straps would allow, then slammed it down on the table. "That's the consequence of defying me," she said calmly. "Never forget, I can do whatever I like to you. Anything at all. To you, to the blue pilot, the yellow pilot. When we're done with you, we'll make you forget and dump you by the road somewhere for your leader to find. But we'll break you first. That I swear. You cannot escape."

Keith blinked. His vision was blurring in and out. "Leave Hunk and Lance alone," he rasped out, the first words he'd said since they took him from the cell.

She regarded him steadily. "No."

She walked away. The other Malkordans undid the bonds, lifted him up by the arms and dragged him back to the cell. As he had on the way in, he tried to look around, tried to memorize the layout so when they got out, or when Shiro came for them, he would know where to go. But his vision was tilting, blurring in and out, and nothing seemed to be working right.

Then they finally gave him back to Lance and Hunk, and Keith stopped forcing himself to be silent. It was a relief to make noise, even a little bit, though he still tried to suppress it to an extent so he wouldn't worry Lance too much. It didn't work. Lance was worried. Hunk was worried. They were practically crying by the time they got him bandaged up and then huddled around him, trying to keep him warm. Keith was dizzy and in pain and not following the plot very well, but he knew that he was in shock and they were doing everything they could, giving everything they could, including the shirts off their backs. Safe at last, he let himself fade.

Now, coming back to himself, Keith was grateful all over again to have these two comrades with him. Yes, it would be better if they were safe, if it was only him being held captive and interrogated. Better yet, none of them at all. But since it was this way instead... He was glad for Hunk's strength and kindness, for Lance's compassion and optimism in the face of these horrible circumstances. He really shouldn't feel safe here, locked in a cell at the mercy of ruthless enemies, but with Hunk and Lance beside him, holding him, he did.

They had to get out of here. Corallis said they were going to take Hunk away again. Keith could not allow that. And that woman telling him not to try to escape just made him more determined to do it. But how?

Keith felt fumbling at his wrist and opened his eyes wider. He looked blearily down at his lap, where his arm was twined with Lance. Lance had huddled closer against Keith's side, ducking his head down and pulling his knees up so that their hands and arms were enclosed in a warm, cozy space between their bodies. Lance was doing something to his cuff. Keith tried to focus his eyes, caught a glimpse of metal.

The metal strip from the bed frame. The self-made tool. Keith drew in a sharp breath. "Hey," Hunk murmured above his head. "It's okay. Just relax."

 _"Almost got it,"_ Lance murmured in a faux language that sounded like pig Latin, but with even more extraneous syllables. Ubbi dubbi? Keith vaguely remembered Hunk and Lance mentioning that they both knew that game and could speak it to each other, but Keith's brain was a little slow. It took him a few long seconds to figure out what Lance was saying, and by then Hunk had already responded in the affirmative. Keith blinked, trying to take it in.

He felt a distinct _click_ that resonated in his wrist cuff and seemed to shiver through his entire body. "There," Lance said, low and satisfied. He set Keith's wrist down in his lap, very gently, and reached for his other one.

"What...what's going on?" Keith dared to ask, still not keeping up.

Hunk tightened the arm he had wrapped around Keith and Lance's backs. _"Lance figured out how to turn off the cuffs,"_ he said in pig Latin. _"The next time they come for one of us, we're going to fight back."_

A thrill of anticipation ran through Keith's body. "Good," he said emphatically, not bothering to disguise the word. He wouldn't let them hurt Hunk again. No way, no how. Nor Lance. Nor himself, come to think of it. None of them. They were getting out.

But he felt the weakness in his own body, and he couldn't help a shiver of doubt. Hunk had gotten beaten up, and Lance had been electrocuted, but they had made Keith lose blood. A lot of it, if memory served. When he shifted his gaze, he could see smears of red on the floor where they had dumped him, before Hunk and Lance hauled him up and supported him between them. He'd left a lot behind on that table, too. And the way his vision swayed when he blinked... Not a good sign.

He didn't know how well he would even be able to walk, let alone fight. He was just going to have to make it work, that was all. He couldn't let Hunk and Lance get hurt anymore. Corallis could not be allowed to derive even one more second of satisfaction from exercising her power over them. Keith would consider his entire life until this moment a success if he could just deprive her of that. He felt sick to his stomach, remembering her hand on his jaw, the expression on her face when she cut him that last time. She was enjoying this far too much. It made Keith feel not just trapped and helpless, but used and soiled in a way he didn't like to contemplate.

Another click as Lance released Keith's second wrist cuff. He shivered, and Lance pressed closer to him as if in response, trying to warm him up. But Keith was warm, now. It was a shiver of anticipation and fear, not cold.

"Good job," Hunk murmured. He wrapped his arm farther around Keith and rubbed his hand up and down Lance's back. "You got this."

If his head hadn't been ducked down, face hidden, Keith was certain he would have seen Lance beam at the praise. As it was, Lance curled up tighter, making the space between their bodies smaller and more contained. Keith raised his knees too and reached over for Hunk's free hand to draw it into the enclosed space. Lance fumbled for Hunk's hand for a moment, then started working on his cuff.

Another click. Keith's breath came short and hard. So close. They only had to get one more of Hunk's wrists, assuming Lance had already deactivated both of his. Then they would all be free.

But Lance paused. "Wait." He switched to ubbi dubbi, speaking slowly so Keith would be able to pick it up. _"Should we leave one cuff active so we'll know when the Malkordans turn them on? Otherwise we'll have no idea."_

They were silent for a moment, contemplating this. Keith grimaced. He didn't want any of them to have even one wrist locked down. How would they be able to fight? The next time the Malkordans opened that door, all three of them needed to be able to launch a surprise attack. It was their only hope of winning their freedom.

But Lance was right. If they didn't know when the cuffs were activated, they would just sit here, and the Malkordans would know that something was up. Instead of coming in like usual, arrogant and unprepared, they would bring guns. Then their only chance would be lost.

Hunk swallowed with some difficulty, but his shoulders were firm. _"You're right. Leave my cuff active so we have warning. You'll have to undo it before they come in."_

Lance's breathing sped up, just a touch. _"I'll only have seconds. You're trusting me too much."_

Hunk pressed his head closer into their little huddle, resting his forehead against Lance's. Both of their faces were only inches from Keith's. Keith closed his eyes, overwhelmed by the closeness, this moment that he did not feel belonged to him. But he still felt Hunk's smile, warm and slow and certain. "Never."

Lance was silent, breathing. Then he nodded.

And that was it. They waited. Lance and Hunk talked a bit more, strategies of how to take the guards down, though all they could do was make very general suggestions. "I go right, you go left," that sort of thing. Keith still felt dizzy, so he left his eyes closed, trying to gather as much energy as he could. He felt himself slumping against Hunk's side, limp and exhausted, head heavy on Hunk's strong shoulder. Lance and Hunk shifted so that Hunk could wrap the arm with the active cuff around Keith's body with his hand now inside the enclosed space of their huddle, so when it activated the guards wouldn't be able to see Lance work on it.

Keith's mind drifted. How long would it be till they came again? He didn't think it would be very long. The way Corallis had questioned him, the urgency in her tone no matter how she tried to hide it under forcefulness and anger... She knew she was running out of time. Shiro and the others must be looking for them. No matter how well-hidden this prison was, no matter how thoroughly their captors had covered their tracks, Keith knew that Shiro would find them. Corallis was cruel and heartless, but she wasn't stupid. She must have known that Shiro was on his way, too.

Part of Keith was afraid of the guards coming back, even though they would be coming for Hunk this time, not him. Keith had managed to repress his responses, but he didn't want to get cut again. It was...it was too much. He didn't want to go through that again. And maybe that was cowardice, but Keith was weak and dizzy and still in pain from the last time, and he couldn't help how he felt. He shivered. Hunk hugged him tighter to his side, and Lance pressed closer too.

No. It didn't matter what they did to Keith. Not really. He had to protect Hunk. He had to protect Lance. He couldn't let the Malkordans hurt them again. Keith's hands found a grip on Lance's wrist, in the fabric of Hunk's pajama pants, and his fingers clenched. They wouldn't get hurt again, not while there was breath in his body. These two people, these incredible friends… They had to get out of here no matter what. They were special, and they were kind, and the way they were with each other was amazing and beautiful. Keith wanted to keep that safe, wanted it to continue forever even if he wasn't there to see it.

At last came that hum in the air, the almost inaudible buzz. Hunk's breath caught. "It's happening," he murmured. They all tensed, and Keith forced his eyes open.

Things happened very quickly. The active cuff began to fall to the floor, and Keith and Lance both moved their visible hands down, too, hiding the fact that their cuffs were turned off. Lance crouched down over Hunk's trapped wrist and fumbled with the tool, trying to jam it into the cuff. Keith felt the guy's entire body shaking, and his breath was coming too fast and hard.

"Lance, buddy, calm down," Hunk said, his free hand motionless on the floor where the cameras could see it. Lance took a breath and tried. Keith rolled his head on Hunk's shoulder and looked toward the door, his entire body tense. He was trembling, too. They were coming.

The lock disengaged, and the door swung open. Two guards. Keith looked past them to the hall, tried to see if there were any more waiting outside. He couldn't see anyone, and he seemed to remember that when they took him, there had been only two. In fact, he only remembered seeing about half a dozen Malkordan faces in the entire time they'd been held captive. Was the unit holding them actually very small and contained?

The guards were coming closer, boots tromping on the stone floor. Keith watched them approach with wide eyes, his expression flat and grim. Lance was still bent over Hunk's wrist. "Quiznak!" he burst out, voice high and terrified.

The guards reached for Hunk, ready to grab his arms. _Click._ "Got it!" Lance yelled.

They exploded from their position on the floor, all three of them, Hunk and Lance and Keith. The guards were frozen for a split second in surprise and indecision, eyes going wide, and that was all the time they needed. Keith put his hands together and swung them both hard, aiming for a slack jaw, while Lance's fist struck out in a hard right cross.

By chance they happened to attack the same guard, so if Keith's body was too weak from blood loss or Lance's was too shaky from electrocution, they made up for each other's lack. The guard crashed to the ground like a felled tree, and the two of them turned toward Hunk and found that he'd already taken out his own opponent. Keith hadn't seen it happen, but Hunk had one hand raised, curled in a fist above his head like he'd just bonked his guy on the top of the head like a coconut. Whatever he'd done, it had worked. Both guards were down for the moment, though Keith was sure he saw a finger twitch. It took a lot more force to knock someone out in real life than it did in the movies, and this was an alien species that might be tougher than the average human, too.

They didn't wait to find out. The three of them were already scrambling for the hallway. Hunk took only a moment to slam the door behind them. They didn't try to lock it, just ran. Keith's eyes darted around frantically, taking in the hallway. The room where they'd tortured him was to the left, so he led the way in the opposite direction. Lance and Hunk followed him with no objection. Keith could only hope that he was moving toward the exit. He had no way to know.

"Wait," Lance gasped. His hand reached out and snagged Keith's sleeve, but Keith didn't slow down. "This is the way...they took me..."

Keith ground his teeth, but he had no choice but to keep going. He and Lance were the only two who remembered being interrogated, and it turned out that they'd been taken in opposite directions from the cell. Neither of them had seen an exit, or they would have mentioned it back when they had time to talk. They would have to wing it and hope for the best.

Keith's body was already beginning to flag, the blood loss and exhaustion hitting him hard. Lance and Hunk moved up beside him, and Hunk got an arm around him, which helped. Lance ran ahead, looking this way and that with frantic jerks of his head. The hallway seemed endless. All the doors they had passed so far obviously belonged to more cells. Where was the exit? Or even the interrogation rooms?

Voices and footsteps behind them. Shouts for them to halt. The heavy sound of boots. Lance cast a glance over his shoulder, eye wide and terrified, another curse stumbling breathless from his lips. Keith didn't look back. Didn't want to see. He just watched Lance, watched the walls flying by on both sides.

They turned a corner, and here. Here the walls changed. No longer the dark stone of the cell area, the walls were light gray instead. White doors, some inscribed with words in Malkordan script. Keith didn't recognize this area, but Lance did. His steps slowed, and he looked around more deliberately, as if he was searching for something. "This is...this is where they took me..."

The sounds of pursuit were getting closer. Then Lance came to a halt so suddenly that Hunk and Keith almost ran into him. Lance was shaking all over, his fists clenched at his sides. Keith opened his mouth to urge him on, but then he saw what Lance was looking at, and he shut his lips.

Dead end. Up ahead was a wall of bars cutting across the hallway, trapping them inside. The bars must not have been here last time Lance traveled this hallway, maybe retracted into the walls. But when they escaped their cells, of course the Malkordans had cut off all escape routes. And there on the other side, stalking toward them...

Corallis. It was Corallis. Her head was down, fists clenched as she paced toward them like a predator on the prowl, her face frozen in a mask of anger and...pleasure. She was happy to see them. She was going to hurt them, and she looked forward to doing it.

Lance's breath caught in his throat. Keith was so dizzy he could barely see. Then Lance turned and flung himself back down the hallway. "Here!" he yelled. "Here, this is where they took me..."

Another door like all the others. It wasn't locked. Lance threw it open and darted inside, and Hunk and Keith followed. Lance slammed the door shut, falling on it with both hands, then turned to the control panel beside the door. He slapped it with his palm, then did something else with swift motions of his fingers, and Keith heard the lock engage. Hunk stood still on the floor, still supporting the majority of Keith's weight as Keith's knees bent beneath him.

Keith looked around the room, hopeful despite himself. Maybe there was another doorway, an exit, a window, even an air vent. But the walls were bare and institutional, and the furnishings inside...

He recognized the chair from Lance's description. And the machine. It did look like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon, huge and overblown and terrifying. But this was real. This machine had been used to electrocute Lance, to pour electricity through his brain in an attempt to study the bond he had with Blue, and it had left him unconscious and bleeding for far too long.

"Lance..." Hunk said, and there was a fear in his voice that Keith didn't quite understand. "Why did you choose this room? We could have picked another one, if we were just going to barricade ourselves in and hope for rescue."

Lance looked at him, eyes wide, just short of panic. His hands kept clenching and unclenching at his sides. He licked his dry lips and tried to say something, then stopped.

Keith's heart felt heavy in his chest. He began to understand. "Lance, no." His voice was soft and breathless, nearly inaudible. "Don't."

Lance turned to look at him full on, and his smile was regretful. "I have an idea."

Keith shook his head, and he felt Hunk doing it, too. "No, Lance. Don't do this. It could have killed you last time. It almost did."

Lance looked back at the chair. He lifted his foot to take a step toward it, then stopped. "This is the only way. I have to super-charge the bond again and talk to Blue."

"Lance." Hunk's voice was rough, on the edge of tears. "Come on. It _hurt_ you. It hurt you so bad, sweetheart. Keith and I...we both saw it. We were so scared. Please don't put yourself through that again."

Lance turned back to Hunk. His eyes were soft. He smiled, shaky, for Hunk and not for himself. "You don't understand. This will work. I know it will. Blue is...she's _looking_ for me, Hunk. I can feel it. She's out there, and she's looking for me. All I gotta do is reach out a tiny bit farther, and she'll know it. She'll hear me and she'll come straight here, and you'd better believe she'll tear this place apart until she finds me. Nothing will keep her out."

"But what if it doesn't work?" Hunk asked desperately. He was holding onto Keith so tightly that it was beginning to hurt, his fingers digging into Keith's flesh. "What if all it does is scramble your brain and...and burst something, so you'll bleed and bleed, like last time, except it won't stop? What if that happens, and you still can't reach Blue? Then...then..."

 _You could die,_ he didn't say, but Keith heard it. They were trapped deep in an enemy base with no backup, no exit route, and no supplies. If one of them was mortally wounded, they had no way to get to a cryo-replenisher in time. Any mistake here was a dead end of another kind.

"Lance," Keith said. He tried to keep his voice calm, but he felt it shaking. "We can find another way. We'll barricade ourselves in here and wait for Shiro and the others. Shiro is on his way, I know he is. Same as you know Blue is searching, I know Shiro is on the way. We can wait it out."

Lance bit his lip. He wanted to believe him. He obviously dreaded doing this as much as Keith and Hunk dreaded him doing it.

"Or...or we could keep fighting," Keith went on, almost desperate to convince him. "We'll improvise weapons from stuff in this room and...and we'll take them all out. I'm sure you noticed, too... The crew holding us isn't that big. There are six, maybe eight guys. We can take them out."

"That we've seen," Lance said gently. "We haven't even been here a whole day. No knowing if there's a shift change, if there's backup. We can't depend just on what we've seen."

Keith grit his teeth. "Then we'll hide. Something. Don't risk your life on a chance that might not even work out. Please." He was shaking hard, now. He didn't want to watch Lance in pain. And he didn't want to watch him die.

"Keith. Hunk." Lance walked back over them and put a hand on both of their shoulders. He looked in their faces, from one to the other, and his expression was settling as he did it, as if he found strength there. As if strength was flowing from their bodies through his fingers, steadying his nerves and hardening his resolve. Lance drew a breath. "I appreciate it, I do. But neither of those plans will work. Not for long enough."

"Lance..." Hunk was almost crying.

Lance squeezed Keith's shoulder and gave him an understanding look, then turned back to Hunk. "I know Shiro is on his way. I'm sure of it. But we're in enemy territory, at a dead end, locked in a single room without an exit. They'll get through the lock soon. I tried to scramble the code, but they _own_ this place. It won't take them long. And we can't fight. Hunk is the only one of us anywhere near full strength, and he can't take on an entire base of enemy soldiers." A little laugh stuttered out of his mouth. "He doesn't even have a shirt."

Loud pounding started at the door, and Keith jolted in terror, eyes flying to it. Hunk and Lance looked too, breath halting for a moment, then looked back at each other. The door held for now, but Lance was right. It wouldn't last for long.

Lance's face was grim. "If they catch us again, they'll hurt us. All of us. I don't... I can't see that again. I can't watch it. I won't. We have to get away. No waiting. I need to talk to Blue. She'll come and save us. It'll be the work of moments, I swear. I know this will work. I know it."

Keith held his breath. Then Hunk's shoulders slumped, and it was clear that the decision was made. "Lance..."

"I know." Soft. Lance let go of Keith's shoulder and put both arms around Hunk's torso, pressing his face into his shoulder. "It's gonna be okay, Hunky Bear."

Hunk laughed, damp and teary-eyed. One arm stayed under Keith's armpits to hold him up, but the other wrapped around Lance and squeezed, powerful and rough. "Do you stay up at night and think of new pet names for me?"

"Maybe." Lance's voice held a hint of mischief, here at the end. The pounding at the door intensified. He leaned back and smiled into Hunk's face. "Help me? Someone will have to activate the machine."

Hunk's breath shuddered, but he nodded. "But I'm not strapping you into that chair." His voice was hard.

Lance shivered. "Agreed. I didn't want you to anyway. I'm doing this voluntarily. I won't try to take off the headset."

They walked over to the chair, to the machine. Keith's knees were steadier now, though he was unable to speak. He slipped away from Hunk's arm, let him stand with Lance. They hugged again, close and tight, before Lance climbed into the chair and sat back.

Lance's face was relaxed, ready, but Keith read the tension in his shoulders, the jump of his knee. Hunk gave him the headset, and Lance put it on. Then Hunk turned to stare at the machine, taking in all of the buttons and levers and dials with an engineer's eye.

There were shouts on the other side of the door now. The sound of a loud tool, something like a buzzsaw. Keith deliberately did not turn to look.

Hunk found the correct switch. His hand reached out, though it didn't touch down yet. He looked at Lance, eyes large and liquid with pain. He was waiting for Lance's signal.

Lance held still and breathed hard for a moment. Then he braced himself, hands clenching on the chair's armrests. He nodded.

Hunk threw the switch.


	7. Chapter 7

Power surged and electricity crackled. Lance's jaw clenched. His nose began to bleed. He didn't make a sound, but his eyes slammed shut, and his fingers were white-knuckled on the armrests.

Hunk stood there by the machine, his hands clasped tight in front of his chest, and watched his best friend suffer torturous agony. His heart was pounding; his throat was dry. He hurt all over, his abused skin, his bruised heart, his empty stomach. It ached. It _ached._ He wanted to turn the machine off. But he stood there, and he watched.

On the other side of the chair, Keith stood wide-eyed, panting. The bandages that wrapped him under his jacket were starting to soak through with lines of red, and his face was frighteningly pale. His eyes were trained on Lance's face, though they occasionally flicked away, looking to Hunk. Begging, pleading. He wanted Hunk to turn off the machine, too.

Tears filled Hunk's eyes. They both wanted it off. They both wanted it to end. They both could barely hold themselves still, standing here and watching Lance go through an impossible amount of pain for their sakes. But they would stand and abide by Lance's wishes for as long as they could.

Then Lance went limp. His hands fell off the armrests, mouth going slack. Something metal clattered on the floor. Hunk had already punched the switch to turn off the machine, while Keith lunged for the headset and ripped it off Lance's head, then threw it as hard as he could. Residual energy crackled over Keith's fingers, and he hissed in pain, but paid no attention. He was reaching for Lance's face, intent on grabbing him and waking him up.

Hunk wanted to, as well, but he was distracted. That buzz of something like a saw at the door was getting louder, the shouts and yells on the other side no longer muffled. He whirled around, saw what looked like a beam of light cutting through the thick metal door, halfway to making a hole. They were coming through.

No. Hunk refused to allow it. He turned back around and grabbed the machine, then began to push it toward the door, a roar building up in the back of his throat. The gigantic piece of equipment was on wheels, making it easier, but it wouldn't have mattered. No matter how heavy or unwieldy this thing was, Hunk intended to use it in defense of his teammates, his friends.

He judged the distance, then shoved the top half of the machine with a yell, hard and loud, and made it topple over. It fell across the door, blocking it completely, and the shouts on the other side rose in pitch but were muffled again by the new bulk of metal. Hunk halted for a moment, heaving for breath, then turned back to Lance and Keith.

Lance had slid out of the chair, or maybe Keith had lifted him. Now Keith knelt on the floor, cradling Lance in his arms again, like he had when they brought Lance back to the cell from this room the first time. He was patting Lance's cheek, speaking to him quickly and urgently. The blood flowed from Lance's nose in an unending stream.

"Wake up, Lance. Come on, buddy. Wake up now. You've been sleeping long enough. Yeah, it's only been a few seconds, but still. Long enough. Wake up now. I need you to look at me, come on. _Look at me,_ Lance, I need to see your eyes, please, please. I really need to see your eyes..."

Hunk knelt on Lance's other side. His hands shook as he reached out and laid them on Lance's chest. He had wanted to do this before, back in the cell, and hadn't been able to. He let out a sigh, eyes closing in relief, when he felt the slow, up and down movement of Lance's chest. "He's breathing."

Keith looked up at him anxiously, half-hunched over Lance's still form. "He needs to wake up."

Hunk nodded gently. "Yeah, but it's okay. He woke up before. He'll wake up this time, too." He wasn't completely sure that he believed this, but he needed to, for Keith's sake. They both needed Lance to be okay.

Keith stared into Lance's face. His entire body was trembling, and his eyes were glazed. Hunk frowned in worry. The blood loss must really be messing with Keith's head.

"Here." Hunk slid his arm under Lance's back, taking the weight from Keith. "I've got him. It's okay."

Keith let go of Lance reluctantly, eyes still fixed on his face. Then he blinked abruptly and pulled back, looking around. Hunk drew Lance to his chest and wrapped a hand around the side of his head, big, square palm covering him from ear to chin. _Stop bleeding,_ he thought at Lance's nose, knowing full well how useless it was. _Stop bleeding, stop it, stop it._

Keith shakily climbed to his feet, then moved back to the chair and stooped down. A scrape of metal on the floor, and he stood with something small and gleaming in his hand. The metal tool, the prison shiv all three of them had worked so hard to procure and shape and use. Lance had been carrying it, and when he passed out, he'd dropped it. Now Keith carried it again, clenched in his fist.

"Keith, come and sit down," Hunk said, his own anxiety rising. He couldn't believe Keith was walking around. He should be barely able to move, considering how pale he was. He should be in a hospital bed with like six IVs stuck in his arms.

Keith shook his head, slow and dazed. He was moving toward the door, where their enemies continued to cut their way through. Hunk had hoped that they would hesitate to destroy that huge piece of equipment, probably expensive, possibly experimental, but no. The laser-edged saw continued to buzz, and the loudest voice on the other side... It was Corallis.

She wanted in. She wanted them. She wanted to make them suffer. She wanted to tear and kill and rend and destroy. Hunk could hear it in her voice.

But Keith stood there in the way, watching her force her way in. "Keith," Hunk tried to call, but he choked on his own tongue. His heart was hammering in his chest. He looked back to Lance and shook him in his arms, making Lance flop around, limp and deadweight, eyes pasted shut. Blood pooled on his bare chest in a puddle of gore. "Wake up," Hunk whispered. "C'mon, please. Wake up. Did it work? Did she hear you?"

Corallis cursed, shoving her shoulder against the block of machinery in her way. Keith settled himself, feet spread in a defensive stance, profile to Corallis's entrance. His fists were raised, one at shoulder height, the other lower. Metal glinted in the higher fist. The tool.

Corallis spotted him waiting for her. She paused, taking the time to let a broad, sharp-toothed smile spread over his face. "You," she purred, strangely satisfied. "Are you waiting for me, Red Paladin?"

Keith nodded, confident and smooth despite the tremor in his legs, the sway of his entire body. He needed to be in a hospital, or at least in a bed, but here he stood, facing the person who had tortured him and his comrades without even a hint of fear on his set, pale face. "Come in if you dare," he said quietly. "You won't get past me."

Corallis snarled. She swiped at the boxy edge of the metal blocking her way with the laser saw she held in both hands. Sparks flew, cascading through the air and even striking her face and bare hands, but she didn't flinch. "Oh, I think I will. You will be the first to pay for this act of defiance, and you _will_ regret what you've done."

Keith blinked, slow and sure. "Never."

She kicked the machine blocking her way, and it rocked, already destabilized by the chunks that had been carved out. Another inch of clearance showed between the blockade and the door. Hunk looked back to Lance, dizzy now with terror. His vision was starting to turn gray on the edges. "Lance," he murmured. "Wake up. Please oh please, wake up now."

He didn't know, exactly, what it would accomplish for Lance to be conscious when they were recaptured. If Corallis succeeded in striking Keith down, Hunk would rather Lance miss that than otherwise. But Hunk wanted him awake, even so. He wanted him here, with him, no matter what would come.

"Please wake up." His voice was tight. It hurt his throat. "Please wake up, Lance, I'm begging you."

Movement at the door. Hunk's gaze jerked back there. His breath halted, burning in his throat. Corallis had set her shoulder against the heavy weight of the machine and was _pushing_ as hard as she could. Behind her, Hunk saw other shoulders, too. The Malkordan soldiers were coming in. Nothing would stop them.

Keith stood there, waiting. Corallis yelled in fury and struck at the machine with her saw, and something shifted. She stumbled forward, suddenly free of the pressure, in time for the machine to rock back against the doorway and plug it again. The soldiers on the outside cursed loudly, but Corallis stood on the other side.

Their side. She was inside the room. She was _inside the room._ Keith did not waver, but Hunk saw his entire body tense. Corallis stood still for a moment, panting, her arms hanging loose from her shoulders. Her snarl faded, replaced with a smile. No, a grin. It grew into a feral thing, wild and satisfied. The saw in her hands roared as she pressed a hidden control, and Keith pulled in a deep breath. She thought she already had him. Keith disagreed.

"Keith," Hunk called, voice a mere squeak. Keith didn't even twitch toward him, just stood where he was, facing the woman who wanted to kill them all. Hunk was genuinely afraid that Keith was about to something foolhardy and noble and stupid, like grab the saw with his bare hand to gain a moment of traction so he could stab that tiny piece of metal into Corallis's neck. Hunk didn't want to watch that. He didn't want it to happen.

Then an earthquake shook the entire building. There was a tremendous _thud_ above their heads, a deep concussive thump like a boulder falling from a height. Hunk caught his breath and cast his eyes nervously heavenward as dust shook loose from the ceiling. Corallis and Keith hesitated, too, looking at the ceiling and walls, wary and tense.

Lance jerked in Hunk's arms, coughing wetly, and Hunk looked back to him. His heart leaped in his chest. "Lance!"

"Hey." Lance's voice was choked, his eyes barely open. He turned his head and spat a mouthful of blood that landed mostly on his shoulder and Hunk's shin, then looked forward to the door. He spotted Corallis standing there, watching him, and regarded her seriously for a moment. Then he smiled, broad, exhausted, and somehow sharp and gleeful at the same time. "She's here."

For a second Hunk thought he meant Corallis, but then that enormous _thump_ sounded again above their heads, shaking the whole room. Keith and Corallis both fell into a half crouch, peering cautiously up at the ceiling with their hands spread for balance. Lance chuckled as if it was hilarious instead of alarming.

Blue. Blue was here.

Corallis stared at Lance now, ignoring Keith. Her eyes were wide, lips curled in hate. "You..."

"I would give you a double-fisted bird salute, but I can't move my arms," Lance said. "Suck on that, you sadistic freak. My best gal is here to save me and my buddies, and if you stick around, I swear she'll tear you apart."

Blue thudded again above them as if in proof. They must have been buried pretty deep underground, or Hunk was completely certain that Blue would already be here, tearing through the walls to get to Lance. Blue did not take kindly to Lance being injured or mistreated. No one did, but Blue was intense about it.

Corallis didn't understand everything Lance was saying, but she knew he was mocking her. Her face morphed from hatred to disgust and back to the promise of death, before his last statement brought her up short for a moment. That, and Blue's continued pounding on the ground above them. Corallis actually looked worried for a bare second, but then she straightened, that feral grin returning. "Nice try, boy. We're ten dekimars below the surface of Malkord. Even your magic robot can't get to you here."

"That's magic robot _space lion_ to you," Lance retorted. "Show some respect."

Hunk looked to Lance's face in concern. Despite the strength of his words, his voice was weakening. Lance's eyelids fluttered, and he looked a breath from fainting again.

Lance's eyes widened, and he threw a worried glance at Hunk, then looked back to the door. "Keith, no!"

Hunk turned to look. Corallis had started to move toward them, eyes fixed on Lance, intent on punishing his insolence. Keith was moving to block her, brandishing the shiv. But if Lance looked like he was close to collapsing, Keith looked even closer. He was swaying on his feet, face almost ghostly pale. More blood had seeped through his bandages. And Corallis stood there with her saw.

"Hunk, stop him," Lance said sharply. "I can't move, so you gotta be my hands."

It was almost funny. A laugh bubbled up in Hunk's chest, though it felt painful rather than humorous. He set Lance down on the floor as quickly and carefully as he could. He stood up so fast that the blood rushed to his head, dizzying him, but he was already moving, running across the metal floor in his bare feet. There was no time to feel dizzy, no time to register the ache and burn of his bruises and cuts, how swollen and hot he felt all over. He had stop Keith from taking on more than he could handle.

But Keith had other plans. "Hunk, stay back," he gasped breathlessly as Hunk drew up beside him, both of them now standing between Corallis and Lance. Corallis halted, glaring at them.

"I got this," Keith said, and again, Hunk almost laughed. It was just so obviously, completely untrue.

Hunk stepped forward, reaching back with one big hand over Keith's chest. He used the lightest pressure he could, but he still heard Keith's breath sharpen, then cut off at the touch. And he felt blood stain his palm, wet and dripping. Still, Hunk did not look away from Corallis. He faced her head on, and he wasn't afraid at all. Keith and Lance were behind him, and that was where they were meant to stay.

"Your fight is with me," he told her, solemn and sincere.

She drew up short, one eye twitching. Corallis had had just about enough with this series of young men constantly interrupting each other's attempts to die at her hands. She looked Hunk up and down with a dismissive eye, taking in his dirty yellow pajama pants, his pudgy figure and shaking hands, the hesitation that must still show on his face despite the truth of his words. The blood that stained him from both Keith and Lance's wounds. The bruises and abrasions and black eyes that were solely his own, bequeathed by her and her comrades.

And she laughed. "My fight is with you, you say? I have no fight with you, Yellow Paladin. It would be nothing but a massacre. And I have no time. The Blue Paladin has offered himself as the first to die, and I intend to honor his request."

She began to brush by him, contemptuous of his ability even to try to stop her. Rage began to build in Hunk's heart, as much on his own behalf as for Lance and Keith. How dare she look down on him? He was a paladin, too, a warrior, a hero. Yellow chose him, and Yellow didn't make mistakes. His hand darted out before he could stop himself. It clamped around her forearm, the one holding the saw. And he held firm.

Keith made a small noise of astonished distress behind him. Hunk stared at Corallis, not daring to look away, but he was peripherally aware that Lance had passed out again, showing his usual penchant for choosing the absolutely most inconvenient time to do pretty much anything. Corallis tried to keep walking at first, acting like Hunk wasn't even there, but then her footsteps halted.

She couldn't move. She tugged on her arm, expecting to break free with no effort, but nothing happened. Hunk stood there. Sometimes...sometimes Lance had astonishing insight. Yes, Hunk was anxious. He was a worrier. He fretted and worked himself up and imagined worst-case scenarios basically every single second of every single day. But when the crisis hit, he stood firm. He was strong as a mountain and brave as a bear. And he was not. Going. To move.

Corallis pulled on her arm again. She hit that control on the saw, making it scream, but Hunk was holding it firmly away from himself. If she switched hands, he would grab that wrist, too. She was not allowed to hurt him. She was not allowed to kill Lance. She was not allowed to run her creepy fingers over Keith's face. Not now, not ever again. They were done with her. All three of them were done with her forever.

Slowly, Corallis turned to face him. Her eyes were wide, her face astonished. "You...what are you doing?"

"I'm standing here," Hunk said, grim as death. "I'm keeping you here until Blue can get to us and break us out. I'm not going to move, and neither are you."

As he expected, she tried to switch the saw to the other hand so she could wield it and swipe at him. Lightning fast, Hunk's free hand darted out and grabbed her other arm, too. Now he was holding her by both wrists, feet spread and planted. He imagined himself as a deep-rooted boulder, entrenched in the earth. Nothing would move him. He was strong as a mountain and brave as a bear, and he would not be moved.

"Hunk, she's gonna kick you," Keith said urgently, and Hunk dodged the attempt. Holding her still like this was keeping her from getting the necessary leverage and torque for a powerful kick, and Hunk was tall and had long arms, too. Corallis ground her teeth in fury and tried again.

The room shook. Keith looked to the door, his breath coming shorter. The soldiers outside were still fighting to get in, a note of fear in their voices now. They had no idea why their entire underground facility was shaking like this, but they still knew they had to get in and recapture the escaped prisoners.

This situation was untenable. Hunk would trap Corallis here for as long as necessary, but if the rest of the Malkordans got in, Keith would not be able to hold them off on his own. Lance was still unconscious, and Hunk had no idea how big a dekimar was, but apparently ten of them were enough to keep Blue at a distance.

They had gotten free for the moment, and they were holding their own, but if something didn't change soon they were going to go right back in that cell. Hunk shuddered at the thought. He couldn't. He couldn't go back, and he couldn't let Keith or Lance go back, either.

The shaking stopped. Hunk looked up at the ceiling, his heart in his throat. Had Blue given up? Or was she looking for another way? Keith's hand landed on his arm, holding tight, and Hunk felt the tremble in his body. Corallis started to smile again. The soldiers on the other side of the blocked door redoubled their efforts.

"No." That was Lance's voice, but there was something strange underneath it. A resonance, a power. Goosebumps rose on Hunk's exposed flesh, and he looked away from Corallis despite every nerve screaming at him to watch her without blinking.

"No more." Lance was sitting up. His nose had stopped bleeding. He looked calm and steady and completely in control of himself. His eyes were open, and they were glowing a sharp, piercing electric blue, pupil and iris and white all swallowed up in the strange energy. Hunk's breath halted for a moment, though his grip on Corallis did not slacken. Keith's fingernails began to bite into his arm, and his shaking intensified.

Lance laid his palm against the floor, and ice spread out from his fingertips in beautiful fractal patterns, the sound of its formation cracking in the air. A line of ice began to cross the metal surface, thick and white, spawning spirals of frost along the path. The ice reached Corallis's feet, then began to climb.

Corallis's breath caught, and then she screamed. Mostly in surprise, Hunk thought, but the smile was gone now, the arrogance, the creepy pleasure she took in her power over them. The ice encased her feet now, thick and bluish-white, and it was still climbing her legs. It reminded Hunk of the Balmera, of the crystals that grew through the Robeast and trapped it in stasis. The ice seemed to accelerate as it spread, and Hunk released Corallis's arms and stepped back in time to watch it wrap up her entire body.

Lance...or was it Blue...had the mercy to leave Corallis's face free so she could breathe. As soon as his hands were free, Hunk whirled to face him, shaking now almost as hard as Keith was. Lance rose deliberately to his feet and began to cross the floor to meet them. His bare feet trailed over the ice and frost without a flinch, as if he didn't feel it, as if it meant nothing to him. His eyes continued to glow, and his face was fierce and still, almost blank.

"Lance?" Hunk murmured when he was close enough. He hesitated, then asked again. "Blue Lion?"

Lance smiled, a strangely stiff gesture, as if he wasn't used to it. "Yes, Yellow Paladin."

Which wasn't really an answer, but okay. Hunk could read between the lines. Lance didn't act like this, so this was either Blue or both of them together. Which was...worrying. But also very, very cool.

Lance turned away from him and faced Corallis. The blank mask cracked, and he bared his teeth with a hiss of hate and fury. Corallis opened her mouth to say something, but Lance waved his hand sharply, and ice grew to cover her lips. She went still, eyes wide.

"You," Lance/Blue said. "Woman. Do not talk. You will do no more harm to the Paladins of Voltron, and you will not speak."

Corallis breathed through her nose, sharp with terror. Hunk came very close to feeling sorry for her.

Lance turned away, dismissing her as irrelevant now. He moved to the middle of the room and stood facing the blocked door, his fists clenched at his sides. He stomped his foot, and ice grew from his toes. It raced across the floor, then built rapidly beneath the machine blocking the door and shoved it aside in a shriek of rending, tearing metal.

Two soldiers had been leaning against the machine, and now they stumbled into the room. The ice that would have blocked the way had been dismissed to water in the fraction of a second before they fell, and they splashed through the huge puddle, off-balance and almost falling. They caught their feet under themselves and spotted Lance standing there, waiting for them. Malkordan soldiers made split-second decisions. Without taking in the other details of the room, the ice, the pillar of their commanding officer, they set themselves, yelled in fury, and rushed at Lance.

He let them get three paces closer to him. Then he raised both hands, palms up, in a quick, sharp gesture, and ice burst from the floor and captured them both. One had an arm hanging outside the ice, the other a leg and the opposite foot. Again, Lance left their faces free, but the growth of the ice had been so rapid and explosive that they were suspended off the floor. It looked disturbingly like the two soldiers had been impaled on blue-white stalagmites, and the sight made Hunk shudder in disbelief.

"What is happening," Keith whispered, low and fervent. "Quiznak, quiznak, what is happening here..."

Hunk put a hand on his shoulder, and he felt Keith waver on his feet. He was still bleeding, too. This was bad.

Hunk looked to Lance, who was still focused on the door. The rest of the soldiers who had been on the other side had fled, probably to get guns or reinforcements. Or both. "Ah...buddy?" Hunk called hesitantly. "Blue? Lance? We need to get out of here."

Blue/Lance tilted their head and acknowledged him with a nod, then began to walk toward the door. Hunk followed, pulling Keith along with him. Keith faltered, and Hunk scooped him up in his arms like a baby, ignoring Keith's gasp of alarm. "I got you, buddy," he murmured. "We're getting out of here. Just relax."

Keith's body softened against him, marginally, but he still held the shiv clenched in his trembling fist. Hunk wouldn't take that away from him even if he could. Whether or not Keith was able to use it right now, at least it seemed to afford him some sense of security.

Lance led the way, striding determinedly down the hallway as if he knew where to go now. Maybe he did. Keith blinked ahead at him, slow, his head limp on Hunk's shoulder. "They shouldn't...shouldn't have super-charged the bond," he said.

Hunk nodded. That was a decent summation of events, yes. "Everything's gonna be okay."

It really did seem like it would be. Hunk looked nervously around for an alarm or a guard or something, but the hall seemed to be empty. Ahead was the wall of bars, blocking their way. About twenty feet beyond that barrier was what looked like an elevator. Maybe they could take that to the surface.

Lance raised his hands, and ice sped from his feet and climbed up the bars, covering them in a fragmented coating of opaque white. He spread his fingers, and the bars flew apart in myriad splinters of metal that clattered to the floor. Ice grew over the splinters to protect his feet, and he stepped through, Hunk and Keith close behind him. Hunk took a big step to try to avoid as much of the ice as possible, but the rime of frost on the floor still stung his bare foot.

But the elevator...how would ice make an elevator work for them? The Malkordans could lock them out of the controls with the building's computer, and Blue wouldn't be able to bypass it. Notwithstanding his immense and lasting gratitude for Pidge not being captured with them, Hunk wished she was here.

Blue/Lance had a simpler solution. He stopped at a different door and tried to open it. When that didn't work, Lance laid his hand on the wall beside the door, and ice grew from his palm to the edge of the door, building and expanding until it was forced all the way open. Then the ice dissipated to water and fell to the floor, and Hunk looked inside.

"Stairs," he said, and laughed. "Of course the Malkordans have stairs in case the elevator gets stuck or something. Safety first."

Lance led the way, Hunk at his heels. The stairs were utilitarian, light gray concrete with black rubber friction bars at the edge of each step. They began to climb. Hunk looked up at the way ahead, but the flights were too close together, so he couldn't tell how many they would have to travel to get to the surface. Again, he wondered how big a dekimar was.

Their enemies were going to be waiting for them up ahead. That or they would burst from the doors they passed every couple of flights, certainly. Hunk kept watching, body tensing warily at each door, but then he noticed an edge of white ice along the edge of each one, cementing the door to the frame.

"Blue," he squeaked. "Are you holding every single door shut? _And_ still trapping Corallis and her soldiers back there?"

Lance glanced back at him, eyes glowing electric blue. Hunk had never realized how important pupils were for communication until his buddy didn't have them anymore. He couldn't tell exactly where Lance was looking, and it was strangely disconcerting. "No more harm will be done to the Paladins of Voltron," Lance/Blue said, still with that resonance and power in his voice.

"Okay, but..." Hunk hustled to catch up to him and walk at his side, staring at Lance's face in concern. "Buddy, your nose is bleeding again."

Lance reached up one hand and touched the red that smeared his upper lip, then shrugged. "Creation of ice is simple. Maintenance takes more effort. We will endure."

Keith was pulling on Hunk's shoulder, trying to get his attention, but Hunk ignored him. "Lance..."

Lance waved his hand in dismissal, a much more Lance-like gesture than some of the others he'd been making. Hunk relaxed a little. At least Lance's nose wasn't bleeding as hard as it had earlier. It was a tiny trickle this time instead of a gush. Still, Hunk had to speak up. "As soon as we're safe, you gotta let go, man."

"That is the intention."

Keith kicked his legs against Hunk's arm, and Hunk finally looked to his face. "Yeah?"

Keith scowled at him. "Put me down. I can walk."

Hunk laughed in his face. "Uh, no. You look like a creepy Asian ghost, dude. Like from one of those Japanese horror movies."

"Well, your arms are starting to shake, too," Keith retorted. "Put me down before you drop me."

"I'll be fine. It's just a bunch of stairs."

Keith huffed and made as if to cross his arms over his chest, then changed his mind, since that would have been painful.

Lance smiled, less stiffly than the first time. He gestured with one hand, and ice began to grow beneath their feet. Hunk halted, his heart in his throat, but the ice did not cover his legs or trap him. It just created a platform for him and Lance to stand on, cold and flat but somehow not slippery or insecure. Then it began to move, carrying them all up the stairs with no apparent effort.

Hunk looked behind him, staring at the ice that disappeared in their wake, leaving a film of water on the stairs. Then ahead, where the ice continually built, then disappeared beneath the platform they traveled on. It was like a magic carpet ride. Made of ice. The sounds of its formation and dissolution cracked and snapped in the air, a winter symphony utterly out of place in this gray, institutional environment.

"Lance..." Hunk's feet were starting to hurt from the cold, but more importantly, how long could Lance and Blue possibly keep this up? He tried to watch Lance's face, tried to gauge if the nosebleed was getting worse, but he really couldn't tell.

Lance did that hand-wave dismissal again, which was really starting to irritate him. Then Keith squirmed to be put down again, and honestly, was Hunk the _only_ smart one here? Why were his friends such self-sacrificing idiots? Hunk was the one who was supposed to specialize in defense, and he was getting tired of them stepping on his toes. But he put Keith down, since he would just have to stay on his feet, not move or anything.

As soon as his shoes touched down on the platform, Keith shrugged out of his jacket and put it on the ice. Then he pointed at it, glaring at Hunk, until Hunk stepped on it. Ah, that was more comfortable. Lance, of course, did not seem at all bothered by the cold. His toes wiggled against the blue and white, pinkish-brown and completely free of any hint of frostbite or anything.

Magic, huh. Weird stuff.

Ten dekimars seemed to go by a lot quicker when you didn't have to climb up every inch of the way. At the top of the stairwell, Keith retrieved his jacket from under Hunk's feet. The ice moved them to the middle of the landing, in front of a door, then rushed away to water. The door was a different color than most of the ones they had passed, and though Hunk couldn't read Malkordan, he was really hoping that the sign on it said "Ground Floor" or something like that.

Lance/Blue's hand was raised, holding the door shut for the moment with ice lined around every edge. He walked forward, gait smooth and confident despite the blood that continued to drip down his face. He lifted his other hand slowly, palm up, and a wall of ice grew in front of them, thick and smooth and transparent as glass. A shield.

Lance spread the fingers of his raised hand, and the ice on the edges of the door burst like a firecracker. The door fell outward, away from them, and Hunk drew in a deep breath of relief. Out. They were getting out.

Lance walked forward, his wall of ice moving in front, Hunk and Keith with him. They walked side by side, three abreast, dirty and torn and bloodied but alive, survivors of everything they'd been through, everything they'd suffered. They walked out of the stairwell and left behind that cold prison cell, the torture rooms, the people who had treated them worse than animals.

They walked into a firefight.


	8. Chapter 8

When Blue went to ground, Shiro and the Malkordan military followed. They were lucky enough to be in a position to spot her as she suddenly stopped her seemingly random passes over the city, then turned almost a complete one-eighty in the other direction and took off over the horizon. Shiro knew what it meant, and he was already popping to his feet inside the airborne troop carrier he was riding and yelling into the comms before she completed her turn. "Follow the Blue Lion! Follow her now!"

The carrier ship turned with gratifying swiftness, fast enough that Shiro had to reach out and grab the side of the open door to brace himself. And they were off, rocketing over the Malkordan landscape. The military presence in the air was relatively small, just three carriers and a couple of attack ships, but if Shiro looked down he could see the ground vehicles following behind.

Alkaric really had come through, and an objective part of Shiro could ackowledge that the force that had been assembled to help him retrieve his men was pretty impressive for the very small amount of time afforded to put it together. They had about fifty soldiers, grouped into six-person squads Malkordans called "knives," plus some support personnel and equipment. Pidge was on the ground in a tech van, hopefully having the time of her life playing with the communications setup, even while she and Shiro were both burning up with need to find their teammates.

Of course, having a lion of Voltron suddenly appear above the capitol city, flying back and forth in a frantic search for her missing pilot, might have put a fire under the rears of the Malkordan military command. Just at a guess. Shiro hadn't listened to a lot of the civilian chatter while they were putting the coalition force together, but he knew there was plenty of alarm out there. An official of some sort had made a public announcement that Blue was an allied ship here for manuevers, but it was a pretty thin story, and Shiro doubted that many had believed it.

But it was all worth it if she took them to Keith and Lance and Hunk. Shiro moved to face the forward windshield, the blue lion far in the distance ahead. She was faster than the Malkordan troop carriers, though they were no slouches in the speed department. Over the comms, Pidge announced that she had a fix on Blue's destination, and the coordinates were being fed to the other vehicles.

Shiro looked to the captain who shared the carrier with him, a grizzled and competent-seeming Malkordan named Franred. The captain looked back at him and gave him a grim nod. "I know those coordinates," he told Shiro over comms. The wind of their flying meant that they couldn't talk without headsets. "It's a new base that isn't fully stocked and manned yet, slated for opening in a couple of arnans. The rebels chose well, hiding there. They would have been able to steal equipment, as well as bring in their own without raising a lot of suspicion."

Shiro nodded. It was a good story. Plausible.

Whatever. He didn't care about the specifics right now. He just wanted his teammates back. They could sort out the rest later: who was lying, who was at fault, whether an alliance with Malkord was still valid or desirable or even possible anymore after this fiasco.

The new base was far beyond the city outskirts, out in the countryside in a plot of land surrounded by forest. By the time they arrived, Blue had landed in the cleared ground between a couple of hangars. She was pounding on the earth like a cat trying to get at a mousehole, continually rising on her back legs, then coming down with all her weight on her front paws. Her nose was pointed at the ground the entire time, back arced like a wild animal in flight-or-fight mode. She had already made a sizeable hole, dirt and grass scattered around the crater of her continuous impacts. Shiro had no doubt at all that Lance was directly beneath her, though what distance down he couldn't guess.

"How deep underground does the base extend?" he asked Franred.

Franred frowned. "It's been too long since I've reviewed the blueprints, but it's deep. Supposed to be a research facility as well as a military base, so quite a few labs for weapon-testing, that sort of thing. Keeping that underground means less risk to the civilian population."

Shiro frowned. Nuclear weapons? Radiation? What had his boys been exposed to down there? He said nothing about that, not sure if the terms would even translate. They didn't have time for a discussion of semantics.

Below them, Blue stopped her fox-like pouncing on the ground. She crouched down on all fours, head lowered to the ruined dirt. The sudden stillness was disconcerting. What was she doing? Shiro knew she hadn't given up.

The rebels, or whoever they were, were starting to boil out of one of the hangars like ants from a nest, shooting weapons at Blue in an attempt to drive her off. There were maybe twenty of them, and all they had were hand weapons, no threat to Blue's armor even without her particle barrier raised. She seemed to be ignoring them completely, unconcerned by such piffling enemies, but Shiro frowned. They would have to clear those guys out before they could get into the base and search for Hunk and Keith and Lance. Another waste of precious time.

Franred was already coordinating the attack over the comms, but Shiro was having trouble paying much attention. All he could think about was getting in there, breaking into that building, and finding his boys. By coming out now, the enemies had shown him which building they were using, so he knew where to go, and Blue's position told him even more. He would cut through anyone who stood in his path, that was all. His right arm was already starting to glow, and the Malkordan soldier nearest him jerked back in alarm. Shiro did not apologize, but he did hold his arm out from his body, fist clenched and ready.

They landed. Shiro was moving before the carrier touched down. He jumped from the open door and let his jetpack slow the last descent so he didn't spatter on the pavement. Then he was running, shield activated in front him, not so much out of a sense of self-preservation as the knowledge that Hunk and Lance and Keith would be very upset if he was injured coming to their rescue. They were all too self-sacrificing for their own good.

The Malkordan squad he had landed with was too far behind to keep pace, and he had no desire to slow down for them. Pidge's van wasn't there yet, but a corner of his mind was aware of her position and distance, too. He would not lose track of another teammate, not for a moment.

The rebels were firing on him, having pulled back from their attack on Blue. Shiro's shield took a few hits, but it held. Behind him, the military provided covering fire. If they really wanted to hurt Voltron, they could shoot him in the back right now. Shiro was leaving himself completely open to them. Maybe they had earned some modicum of trust from him after all. Or maybe he just didn't care.

Shouting. Firing. A battlefield was different than the arena, but it felt the same, too. Shiro had only one purpose here, and he would pursue it to the ends of the universe. Those rebels who had not already been killed by military fire fell back to the hangar. Shiro reached their front rank and cut through with ease. He dropped two, maybe three fighters on his first pass, and then he was through and still running, looking for a door to take him downward.

The hangar was almost empty, since the base wasn't yet in use. It was big enough to house several of the dirigible-like ships the Malkordans used for surveillance, as well as entire squadrons of fighter planes or starfighters. The firing of weapons echoed hollowly in the enormous space, and Shiro's head swiveled around, looking for any landmarks to guide him.

All he saw were a couple of ground vehicles, which... Yes, those looked very much like the vehicles that had taken Shiro's people away from him in that security footage. He turned toward them on first sight, running full-out to the area where they were parked. And there in a concrete structure against the wall of the hangar... A door. It had to lead downward. It had to.

Behind him, the military had fully engaged with the rebels. Shiro spared a glance back, saw people being cut down all over the field of engagement, and looked forward again. No one was shooting at him for the moment, which was all he needed. He focused on the door.

And the door burst outward, blown off its hinges by some incredible force. Shiro stumbled to a halt, brought up short in surprise. Then something began to emerge. No, someone. Three someones.

His boys. They were preceded by some kind of thick, clear shield that seemed to be moving independently, no supports that Shiro could see. After the shield moved beyond the door, it expanded to the sides and curved back, protecting the three young men who moved into the hangar after it. Hunk and Lance and Keith. They were...

Quiznak, they looked rough. Hunk and Lance were shirtless, their pajama pants torn and filthy, and their skin was painted with blood and bruises. Keith was wearing his jacket, but underneath that was just a swath of bandages from armpits to waist, so soaked with blood that Shiro had no idea where the injury underneath even was. And their faces...

Hunk had been beaten to hell. Both eyes were blackened, and his entire face was so swollen with cuts and bruises that Shiro barely recognized his features. He looked like a prizefighter who had gone too many rounds and just kept getting up when he was knocked down. Keith's face was ghostly pale from blood loss, and his expression was so glazed and vacant that Shiro didn't understand how he was even keeping on his feet. And Lance... Lance was cut and bruised too, though not as badly as Hunk. More worrying was the fact that his nose was pouring blood, and judging by the state of the rest of him, he'd been bleeding for quite a long time.

"Lance!" Shiro yelled, screamed at the top of his lungs. Then he was running again. "Keith! Hunk!"

The three boys halted at his voice. Hunk's eyes went as wide as they could, but Keith seemed too exhausted to have much of a reaction, and Lance... Lance was concentrating on something, his hand raised flat in the air like a cop stopping traffic. Belatedly, Shiro realized that Lance's eyes were wrong. He hadn't noticed at the earlier distance, but now, running closer... Something was definitely wrong with Lance's eyes.

Eyes weren't supposed to glow like that.

A shiver ran down Shiro's back. He remembered yellow eyes, including his own. Or had that been a hallucination? Lance's eyes were different, though. They were blue instead of yellow, and the glow was much more powerful, sparking so brightly that Shiro half-expected to see arcs of lightning shooting out from his eyes.

"Shiro!" Hunk yelled. That was relief in his voice, enormous, overwhelming relief. Like he'd been struggling against a heavy weight all alone for an impossible length of time, and Shiro had finally come to take it off his hands. It sounded like a sob. "Shiro! We're here!"

"I'm here!" Shiro yelled back, and then he was there.

His own shield deactivated, and he ran straight into the transparent wall surrounding the boys with both palms outstretched. He expected to slam into that surface, whatever it was. But instead the transparent shield melted and reformed, letting him through, and he was on the other side. Shiro drew himself to a stop before he ran into Lance and glanced back, breath stuttering in shock. The shield was firmly in place behind him. The four of them were protected from the ongoing firefight outside.

Shiro looked back to his lost-and-found kids, heaving for breath. Pidge's voice, almost hysterical, chattered in his ear. "Did you find them? Shiro, you found them, didn't you? Tell me you found them!"

"I found them," Shiro gasped, already reaching out. His hands wrapped around Keith's arm on one side, the side of Hunk's neck on the other. In front of him, Lance stood still, hand raised, face almost blank besides the dripping blood and the blue glow of his eyes. "I found them. They're here. They're alive. All three of them."

Hunk sobbed, and his knees started to give way. Shiro whirled to catch him, but then Keith was on the way to a fall, too, slumping against Lance as if all of his strength had failed him in an instant. Lance couldn't take the pressure. He started to fold to his knees, too, a rough gasp torn from his lips. He held himself up, barely, and Hunk slumped against Shiro with his arms wrapped around his shoulders, Shiro's arms holding him up in return.

"I'm here, I'm here," Shiro said, soft and fervent into Hunk's hair. "I brought an army with me. Pidge is behind me. Allura and Coran are waiting for us. I'm here, I'm here. You can let go. All three of you. You can let go."

Keith let out a high-pitched noise that might have been agony and might have been relief. Lance blinked, and the blue light of his eyes was hidden away for a moment. Outside the shield, the fight was already starting to taper off as the rebels were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Shiro heard the weapons slow, firing less and less frequently.

"Lance," Hunk said, weirdly intense. "Did you hear Shiro? He's here now. You can let go."

Lance blinked again. Then, suddenly, he did. His eyes closed, just slow enough that Shiro could see the glow fade away, replaced with the usual iris and pupil. His raised hand fell to his side, too, and Lance fell, himself. His knees simply buckled beneath him. Keith tried to grab him, but he was also almost limp, unable to hold himself up let alone Lance.

Shiro let go of Hunk with one arm and reached out to catch them both. He was glad for the strength of the prosthetic. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to handle the sudden weight of both Keith and Lance. As it was, the armful he caught was awkward and unwieldy, and the best he could do was guide their descent to the ground. So Shiro went to his knees with them, Hunk in one arm, Keith in the other, and Lance collapsing forward to land against Shiro's chest.

They were all on the ground, now. Shiro heard a sound like falling water, and he felt a dampness. It was probably his own eyes. "I've got you, I've got you," he murmured, trying to hold all three of them at once and not quite succeeding. He just couldn't decide where to put his hands. One moment he was cradling Keith's cheek, then he was wrapping his palm around the back of Hunk's neck, then he was reaching over to stroke his fingers through Lance's hair where it had come to rest under his chin.

"I've got you," he said, and he was crying, Hunk was crying, Keith was crying, Lance's tears dripped down his breastplate. They were all crying, and it was good, it was good, it was so, so good.

"I missed you," Shiro said. "I was so worried. I'm so glad you're safe."

Hunk cried on his shoulder. "It hurt, Shiro. It hurt so much."

"I'm sorry," Shiro said, carding his fingers through his hair. "I'm so sorry you went through that. But it's over now. You're safe. You're with me, and you're safe."

Lance shuddered against his chest, and Keith whimpered as the movement jarred him, body leaning limply against both Lance and Shiro. Shiro understood that it was going to take time to convince them. He needed to get them back to the castle and into the cryo pods as quickly as possible. He needed to check Keith's wounds and make sure he wasn't bleeding out while they sat there. He needed to find out why Lance's eyes had been glowing, how he'd been controlling that incredible shield.

More importantly, though, he needed to kneel on the ground and hold his boys for as long as possible.

"You were so brave," he told them, over and over. "You were so brave. You fought so hard. I'm so impressed by you. I'm so glad to have you back."

The ground shuddered, and Shiro looked up over his shoulder to see the blue lion traversing the gigantic hangar space to meet them. There were screams and shouts of dismay from the rebels and military still battling it out over at the entrance, but Blue ignored them all. She walked directly to where they were collapsed on the ground and lowered her body down until her head rested on the concrete-like floor and her paws surrounded them, keeping them safe. Her tail lashed somewhere back there, gouging furrows in the concrete, and there was more yelling from the Malkordans. Shiro didn't care.

"Thank you, Blue," he choked out, giving her a watery smile. "Thank you for showing us the way to find them. We'll...we'll ride you back to the Castle of Lions in a bit, okay?"

Blue's eyes glowed as if in acknowledgment, and though they were yellow instead of blue, Shiro's breath caught in his throat. He looked back to Lance, still collapsed on his chest, and a thousand questions pushed at his lips. He said nothing, though. They could discuss it later. The boys could tell him exactly what happened, what they went through, why they were all so injured, how they had escaped in the end. For now, it was enough to know that they were here, and they were alive and safe. Shiro was going to keep them that way no matter what.

"Shiro! Shiro!"

Pidge. Blue lifted one paw, just a little. Pidge rushed through the small gap afforded by the movement, then stopped and stared, heaving for breath. Shiro tried to give her a reassuring smile, telling her that everything was okay now. But her eyes swept over Keith and Lance and Hunk, and he could see the horror there. It was mirrored in his own heart.

They'd been gone for less twelve hours. And this...this was the condition they were in after such a short captivity in enemy hands. Beaten, bloody, exhausted, used and abused in ways Shiro's mind shied from contemplating. All three of them had been tortured, that much was obvious, though the reasons were still opaque.

"Corallis," Hunk mumbled into Shiro's shoulder. Then he lifted his head, eyes suddenly wide, almost frantic. "If Blue is here, that must mean Corallis..."

 _Who?_ Shiro opened his mouth to ask, but Lance was already turning his head to answer. "She's gon' be too cold to move for 'while." His voice was slurred with exhaustion, but he seemed confident. Still, Keith shivered harder, and Shiro tightened his grip on him.

That was answer enough to Shiro's question. Corallis was someone who had held them prisoner, and she'd probably had an active role in torturing them. All three boys had tensed up against Shiro at the reminder of her existence. Shiro's heart burned with hatred, and he saw the look on Pidge's face, as well.

"The elevator..." Hunk said, looking at Pidge.

She nodded back, grim. "I got it." She spun on her heel, and Blue lifted her paw to let her out again. Outside the orbit of Blue's protection, Shiro heard Pidge's weapon activate, and something sparked, then shorted out explosively. Corallis wouldn't be coming up any elevators, and presumably stairs would take longer.

But that time, they needed to be gone. Shiro lifted his hand and ruffled it through Keith's hair. "Can you move at all?" he asked softly. "Blue is here. We can go home."

Keith moaned, but he started to shift. Hunk was the most successful, though. He knelt back from leaning on Shiro and took his own weight, though he was still close enough that Shiro could keep a hand on his shoulder. "I can walk," Hunk said wearily, "but Lance isn't gonna be able to move at all, and Keith shouldn't."

"I can walk too," Keith said, with a try at defiance, but he was too tired. Still, he sat back, reeling as he moved. Shiro gripped his upper arm to hold him up.

Lance grunted against Shiro's chest, utterly limp. Without Hunk and Keith propping him up on both sides, he was starting to slide down the armor. It was scary, how completely out of strength he was. Hunk reached over and caught him with a big hand on his back, and Lance suppressed a whimper. He must be sore all over.

By this time Pidge was back. She knelt wordlessly at Keith's side and drew his arm over her shoulders, then pulled him to his feet. Hunk stood on his own, swaying and blinking, but at least he didn't look like he was going to fall over. Shiro gathered Lance into his arms and stood up, and Lance closed his eyes and breathed out a slow breath, his face red with embarrassment under the bruises and cuts.

"I've got you," Shiro murmured. "It's okay, buddy. You did such a good job."

Blue was already waiting with her mouth open, and they walked inside in a slow, limping procession. Shiro set Lance down in the pilot's chair, though he knew he wouldn't be able to take the controls. Lance gave him a grateful smile and relaxed. Hunk sat down on the floor in the back of the cockpit with a whuff of air, and Pidge lowered Keith next to him, then hovered over them anxiously, unable to look away. Hunk took Keith's shoulders and drew him down until he lay on his back, his head in Hunk's lap. Keith closed his eyes and seemed to pass out, right there.

Blue moved, slow and smooth as butter so as not jar her injured passengers. Shiro stood by the pilot's chair, one hand holding the back. With the other, he tapped the Malkordan commset he still wore.

"Attention, Malkordan military force," he said formally, not waiting for a greeting. "This is the Black Paladin. I have retrieved my men and am taking them back to our base for medical treatment. Our representatives will be in touch for further negotiations. Don't call us. We'll call you."

Then he took off his helmet so he could get at the headset. He tore it off his head and dropped it on the floor. He resisted the urge to stomp it under foot, break it until it was nothing but splinters and pieces. They were going home, and nothing else mattered.

Coran was waiting with a couple of hoverstretchers when they arrived. Allura was on her way, he said, but Shiro barely heard him. He was carrying Keith, this time. Keith wouldn't wake up. And there was far too much blood. Some of it was staining the floor of Blue's cockpit now, and Shiro didn't want to think about it. They had to get Keith into a cryo pod as quickly as possible.

Hunk and Pidge came behind, almost hobbling, trying to support Lance between them. Lance was too weak even to hold his head up, instead letting it bob against his chest. Coran cast them a worried look, already bent over Keith trying to read his vitals, cursing when he couldn't find them. Then he did, but they were too weak. Once Shiro laid Keith down on one of the stretchers, he went back for Lance and put him on the other one. Then he had to catch Hunk when the big man almost fell down, too.

They were all in such horrible shape. It made Shiro's throat too tight for speech. He had almost lost it when Coran couldn't find Keith's vitals at first. Now, he just held onto Hunk as tight as he could. Pidge held Lance's hand. Coran led the way to the infirmary, jogging through the halls with the stretchers following behind like balloons on strings.

Hunk couldn't keep up, and Shiro wouldn't leave him behind, so by the time they arrived at the infirmary Coran and Pidge had already gotten Keith into a pod. He floated there, ghostly pale. The white medsuit made him look even worse, but Shiro was grateful that Coran had managed to remove those clunky, awful wrist cuffs. Shiro deliberately chose not to look at his chest, nor at the pile of bloody cloth left on the hoverstretcher. Lance was next, then Hunk, after a brief examination. Hunk tried to protest that he didn't need it, he was fine, just some bruises. But Coran said Lance had mentioned something about the Malkordans using a mind wipe on Hunk, so he went in too.

Once they were all healing, Shiro sat down on the floor and closed his eyes. Pidge sat next to him and leaned into his side, and he put his arm around her shoulders. He heard Coran moving around the space, putting things away, setting alarms on his tablet reader to alert him when the boys woke up. Then his footsteps came closer to them, and Shiro felt his hand in his hair.

Shiro opened his eyes and looked up. Coran smiled down at him, soft and warm behind his mustache. "Why don't you clean up and have a rest?" he suggested kindly. "They'll be in the pods for hours. Hunk just a few, Lance a little more, Keith a little more than that. By evening meal they'll all be out. You have time for a nap."

Shiro blinked. That fast? That was all the time they needed? Well, none of the boys had suffered internal injuries, apparently, and while Keith was the worst off, he hadn't even lost consciousness until they were safe in Blue. Shiro's hands shook, and he clenched them together.

"I...yes," he said slowly. "A nap would be good."

"Take your time. I'll contact you when Hunk is ready to be released."

Shiro didn't want to take his time. He wanted to stay here and wait. But he could acknowledge that Coran was right. He needed to clean up, and he needed a rest. His eyes felt gritty when he blinked, and Pidge was sagging against him harder and harder. He needed to set a good example for her.

Then a thought hit Shiro, and he sat up straight. "No."

Coran took a step back and frowned down at him. "What?"

"I need to see it." Shiro's hands clenched into fists. "I need to see the place where they were held. The Malkordans should be finished cleaning out that rat's nest by now. I need to see what happened there."

Coran's frown deepened. "I don't think..."

Shiro stared up at him. "I'm their leader. I need to see. I need to understand."

Pidge was already on her feet. "There might be more security footage to pull." Shiro opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "If it counts for you, it counts for me. They're my teammates. My _friends."_ Her teeth bared, fierce and powerful. "We have to get there fast, before the Malkordans have the chance to cover anything up. We'll take Black and Green."

Coran started to protest again, then sighed and closed his mouth. "You're right. There are far too many questions here. We need answers, and we can't trust the Malkordan government to provide them."

Left unsaid was that of course they would talk to Hunk and Lance and Keith, too, but their perspective was no doubt limited. And Shiro didn't want to force them to discuss what they had gone through before they were ready, anyway. Better if he could find out on his own.

He still wanted to tell Pidge to stay behind, but he couldn't. She was right. They were her teammates, and she needed to know what had happened to them. It wasn't fair; she was too young. She shouldn't have to even know that things like this happened to people at all, let alone be exposed to them. But all that had gone out the window the instant she accepted her role as the Green Paladin.

And as much as it made Shiro's stomach churn to contemplate it, Pidge faced the same risks. He had no idea why the Malkordans had chosen to take Lance and Keith and Hunk from their rooms and not he and Pidge. But they both knew that they had narrowly escaped capture and torture. Shiro would have gladly put himself in the place of any or all of his teammates, but he had not been given a choice. Neither had Pidge or the others.

One thing was for sure. They were never trusting the security of potential allies again. From now on, they were bringing their own, and they wouldn't let their guard down until they were all safe in the Castle of Lions.

They did not ask the Malkordans for permission to land their lions, just took them down to the base. Shiro knew it was a breach of protocol, but he didn't care. Allura could apologize for them, if she felt the need. They arrived in the middle of what looked like a clean-up operation. Fast work, since they'd only been gone for about half an hour. Shiro and Pidge disembarked from the lions and strode through the hustle and bustle side-by-side. Out of the corner of his eye, Shiro saw Franred approaching, but he took one look at Shiro's face and turned away. Smart man.

Pidge had destroyed the elevator thoroughly, though a unit of Malkordan techs was working on fixing it. They found the door Lance had somehow blown away and discovered a stairwell, then started down. Some of the stairs were damp, and Shiro saw drops and dribbles of blood here and there. Could have been Keith, Lance, even Hunk. All were dark red now, drying out. They didn't meet anyone on the stairs. Maybe Franred had warned the folks under his command to stay out of their way.

On the bottom floor, they stepped into a hallway. It was white and institutional, doors on each side. Not far down the hall, broken bars jutted out from the wall on both sides as well as the ceiling, strangely twisted and blasted where they had been cut through.

A line of metal splinters had fallen on the floor below, as if the bars had been obliterated by an unimaginable force and dropped down like sprinkles. Shiro stepped over the line almost superstitiously, as if it was a crack that could break his mother's back. Something about it seemed mysterious and powerful, supernatural. Pidge followed his lead.

In another room off the main hall, they found more. A door cut through with violence and prejudice. A destroyed machine, hulking in the corner, large chunks of it carved out as if with a chainsaw. A chair with straps. Blood and water on the floor.

Pidge studied the machine, trying to figure out what it was for, while Shiro patrolled the edges of the room for more clues. She came back to Shiro's side sickly white, unwilling to talk about what she'd seen. Just shook her head when Shiro asked. "I could be wrong," she murmured. Shiro knew that look. She wanted to be wrong. He didn't think she was.

They went back into the hall, turned a corner. Now the walls were not white, but dark gray. The doors had bars in them. Shiro's steps faltered, and Pidge's hand found his elbow. It wasn't like the Galra cells, not really. The colors were different, the lines, the designs. But all prisons had a sameness to them, even so. He knew what this was.

A door was open. They went inside. The cell was bare, almost unfurnished, only an empty, twisted bedframe in one corner and a commode in the other. And on the floor, blood. The shredded remains of Keith's shirt, a yellow corner of Hunk's pajamas. Shiro picked them all up, unwilling to leave even scraps that belonged to his people in this sullied place. He stood in the middle of the cell and breathed until he steadied. The room was too small. Pidge pulled his elbow, made him leave.

She took him back to the white corridor and pushed him down to sit on the floor, back against the wall. Then she started breaking down doors. He sat there and listened to her, constantly aware of her exact location. If she yelled for help, or even gasped too loudly, he would be up and at her side in an instant, Galra arm glowing. But Pidge was grim, almost silent, just doing her job.

Eventually, Pidge found a room with something useful in it. Probably computers. Shiro heard typing, cursing. Then she rummaged around for a while, and there were more bangs and crashes. Her weapon activated and cut through something.

She returned flushed and triumphant, carrying several boxy components that looked like hard drives. "They tried to erase the footage," she said, grimacing to show what she thought of that. "But I think I have a program to put it back together. Or I'll write one."

Shiro smiled. "I'm sure you will." He gathered his feet under himself and stood, hand falling on her shoulder. "Don't watch the footage alone, okay? Once you decrypt it, give it to me. Or Allura and Coran."

She nodded thoughtfully, staring down at the components in her hands. Then she looked around again. "Should we keep looking? See if there's anything else?"

Shiro hesitated. To be thorough, they really should keep going. There might be other rooms, other scraps he needed to collect. But a very large, very insistent part of him rebelled at the thought.

After all, he had completed his objective. He had seen where they were held. He understood at least a piece of what they'd been through. He knew what it had been like, not least because he'd been through something like it himself, though not the same. The sickness in his gut and the images in his head were enough to remind him of everything he had forgotten, everything he wanted to forget.

And Pidge had seen enough.

"No," he said as calmly as he could. He ignored the quiver down deep in his voice and in his belly. "We're done here. Let's go back and wait for the boys to wake up."

Pidge nodded, and they went.


	9. Chapter 9

When Hunk came out of the cryo pod, Pidge was waiting with his and Lance's favorite blanket. It was huge, very soft, very fluffy, very thick, and covered with traditional patterns from a planet they had liberated a few months ago. And it had been handmade by someone's grandma. Pidge didn't know whose grandma, but it just had to be a grandma, that was all. Lance said once that the blanket reminded him of one of his aunts who had made personalized afghans for every kid in the family who went away to school. Lance's afghan had, of course, been left behind at the Garrison when they took off in Blue.

Pidge didn't know how Lance had obtained this blanket. He had come back to the castle with it after they'd had a feast with that planet's inhabitants, who were ecstatic over their freedom from Galra rule. He might have bought it at a market, or maybe someone had given it to him as a thank-you gift. Hopefully someone's grandma. Lance deserved to get a present from someone's grandma.

In any case, it had instantly become Lance's favorite blanket, and therefore Hunk's as well. Lance wasn't stingy with it, either. If Pidge had gotten something this awesome and fluffy and soft and warm, she probably would have kept it in her room and only reluctantly allowed anyone else to even know of its existence, let alone touch it. But Lance dragged this blanket around with him to whatever lounge or rec room the team was hanging out in during downtime, and Pidge was pretty sure he also took it in his lion when they had an extended mission. It should be ragged and gross by now, but Lance took shockingly good care of it. It was almost pristine, only a few ragged threads on the corners beginning to unravel, which was normal for homemade knitted creations.

It might be the blanket's fault that Lance and Hunk had stopped even trying to pretend that they didn't just want to snuggle at every single opportunity that presented itself, come to think of it. After the blanket became part of their home, whenever Lance had it and was hanging out with the group, Hunk was there, too. It became very normal, very fast.

Lance shared the blanket with anyone else who seemed to need something warm and fuzzy, of course. He had draped it over Pidge on more than one occasion when she was getting cranky and overtired, including her head, as if she was a bird who could be put to sleep by making her think it was dark out. If Keith was separating himself from the group again, Lance would wrap himself in the blanket, then inch closer and closer to him until Keith suddenly found himself enveloped, absorbed in an instant by the Lance-shaped blanket blob. Shiro was not immune to this treatment, either, though Lance was slightly more respectful with him. Only slightly, though.

But Hunk was a willing participant in Lance's shenanigans, as usual. On movie nights, the two of them always ended up cuddled under the blanket together, often with one or both of them asleep. It became common to spot them napping together on a sofa in one of the lounges, spooning under the blanket's warm expanse, or hanging out with it over their laps while Hunk studied Altean ship manuals and Lance worked on one of his small craft projects. Pidge was pretty sure that whenever one of them had a nightmare, he ended up in the other one's bed that night, blanket there to comfort them both.

So of course Pidge had grabbed the blanket almost as soon as she and Shiro returned from Malkord. She dropped the hard drives off in her workshop, unable to stomach the thought of working on them yet. She knew already, though, that when she decrypted the footage, it was going straight to Allura, no one else. Shiro didn't need to see it, and Coran was far too attached to Lance and Hunk (and all of them, really) to be able to deal with it. Allura would hate it, too, but she would be able to keep a clear head. Pidge would watch it with her, and then they would decide what to do.

Hopefully that decision would lead to at least a little destruction down on Malkord. Green was totally up for it, Pidge knew that already. She didn't know for sure if there actually had been a rebel group, or if it had been a cell of the Malkordan military that they didn't mind mowing down themselves in order to keep up appearances. The idea of an attempted mind wipe, like Lance had talked about, indicated the latter. But the soldiers Pidge had ridden to the base with in the tech van had seemed truly disgusted with the "rebels" and destroyed them without any qualms whatsoever. Then again, maybe they just hadn't been privy to the plans of their commanders, so they really did believe that they were slaughtering bad guys, not their own people.

Whatever. It was a worry for later. After Pidge knew for sure that her friends were whole and healed and as close to okay as they could be.

After dropping off the hard drives, she took off her armor, cleaned up, and got something to drink and snack on to fortify herself. Then she fetched Lance's blanket (she found it in Hunk's room, this time), and carried it to the infirmary.

Shiro and Coran were waiting, too. Hunk did not do well with cryo pods. They felt small to him, even though objectively there was plenty of space even for much larger aliens. He usually came out of one half-panicked, and after what had put him in there this time... Pidge wouldn't be surprised if he had a full-on panic attack the instant the pod released him.

He didn't, but it was close. His eyes were wide, breath too fast, and he stumbled out of the open pod as fast as he could. Shiro and Coran were already there, catching him on either side just before Hunk's knees buckled, and they lowered him to the steps. Pidge leaped in with the blanket and draped it over them all, and they sat there together, holding on, while Hunk's breath steadied and his shaking eased.

"This feels...weird," Hunk said after a long moment, leaning heavily on Shiro.

Shiro stroked his hair with one hand. Coran had his arm around Hunk's shoulders on the other side, and Pidge squirmed between them, almost in Hunk's lap. "What feels weird?" she asked, when the others were too slow to answer for her liking.

"The...the mind wipe, I guess. They tried to erase my memory. Of when they hurt me."

Coran nodded gently. "Yes, Lance mentioned that. He said it was worse at first, you couldn't remember anything about the journey to Malkord, but then some memories came back. He was worried about you, the damage that might have been done to your mind."

Hunk laughed, tears in his voice. "Of course he was. And here I am, sick to death with worry about what happened to _his_ mind..."

They were silent for a moment, before Pidge piped up again. "But what's feeling weird to you? Did the cryo pod fix it?"

Hunk shook his head, slow, like it hurt. "No, the memories are still gone. I can't catch the...specifics. But... I feel like they're there, underneath. I didn't have that feeling before. Maybe the cryo-replenisher tried to heal my brain, but couldn't quite finish."

Pidge tried to wrap her mind around that, around what it would feel like to know that you had been tortured, but not be able to actually remember it happening. Knowing the memories were there, sensing them hidden under a thin layer of forgetfulness. What if they came back? What if he wasn't ready for them? This could lay Hunk out flat with no warning at all.

It occurred to her that this was exactly what Shiro was dealing with.

It occurred to Shiro, too. He shuddered and held Hunk tighter, the side of his chin resting against his temple. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

"Not your fault," Hunk said. "And I know you didn't just mean that as an expression of sympathy, though the sympathy is appreciated, trust me. I know you feel guilty, too. I'll tell you all day long that you shouldn't, and so will Lance and Keith, and I know you won't believe us. But still. It wasn't your fault."

Shiro laughed, a little choked, but sincere for that. "You're so smart, Hunk. What would we do without you?"

"Well, you wouldn't eat as well." Pidge, pressed against Hunk's stomach, heard it rumble. "Speaking of which..."

Coran chuckled and squeezed his shoulders. "You have time to eat before Lance wakes up. Would you like me to fix something for you?"

"No way, man. I was just trapped in a cold cell for like half a day, and for most of it my hands were attached to the floor." Hunk circled one wrist with the other hand, almost unconsciously. Those stupid, clunky cuffs Pidge and Coran had removed with Coran's tools must have hurt. "I want to _cook."_

"Fair enough." Shiro drew Hunk's arm over his shoulders and gently levered him to his feet. "Let's get you a shower and clean clothes, too. There's plenty of time, right, Coran?"

Coran replied in the affirmative. The men started moving toward the door, Hunk asking questions about Keith and Lance while Coran answered. Pidge collected the blanket and set it aside for when Lance got out. It was good to have Hunk back. He was always such a steadying presence.

When Lance woke up, Hunk was waiting right in front of the pod, clean and freshly dressed and fed, a big smile on his face. The groggy post-cryo expression on Lance's face lightened immediately, and he fell into Hunk's arms without hesitation, laughing joyfully. They hugged as tight and hard as Pidge had ever seen them do it, and yeah, at first it just looked happy and bright, like a reunion after a long separation. Before long, though, she realized that Lance was shaking, and so was Hunk. Their soft, mutual laughter was starting to rise toward hysteria.

"We made it," Lance said, barely above a whisper. Somehow it seemed to echo in the room, loud and ringing. "We made it. We lived."

"Did you doubt it?" Hunk asked, arms wrapped so tight around Lance that they almost circled back to himself.

"Never. Not with you on my side."

Hunk laughed, soft and deep, and turned his head to kiss Lance on the cheek. "I love you so much, dude."

"Love you too, man."

"Okay," Shiro said, a hand on both of their shoulders. "Maybe you guys should sit down now."

"Yeah," Lance said shakily. "That's a decent idea."

So to the floor they went again, and Pidge brought the blanket. Then she fetched the plate of scone-things Hunk had made and set aside when Lance's pod started to beep. She snuggled in with them, Shiro on the other side, Coran behind them patting Hunk's back and Lance's head. At the sight of the scone-things, Lance squealed and made grabby hands, so Pidge gave him the plate.

"Hunk, you glorious fondue fountain! You remembered!"

Hunk smiled, arm still around Lance's waist under the blanket. "Didn't have time to try for a cake. We'll do it later, when everyone's rested up a bit. And we have to get Malkordan ghee."

"Yeah, and you gotta have me with you in the kitchen to help whip the meringue," Lance said through a mouthful of crumbs. The entire conversation made no sense, but Lance and Hunk were happy, so that was all that mattered.

When he had slaked his hunger a bit, Lance put an arm around Pidge and leaned into Hunk with a contented sigh. "I'm so glad to see you guys," he said, looking at Shiro and Coran, too. His other hand was still clenched in Hunk's shirt, as it had been since he emerged from the pod.

Coran offered a smile, slightly strained. "Same."

Lance snickered, most likely because Coran was using a human expression he'd taught him. Shiro huffed out a breath and ruffled his hair. "How's your head?" Pidge remembered the way Lance's nose had been bleeding and looked up in his face to gauge his response.

Lance sighed, and suddenly he looked tired, even though he had just gotten out of a machine that replenished energy. "I don't know. It feels...weird. Like, almost healed, but not all the way."

"That's what I said." Hunk frowned. "I thought they didn't try the mind wipe on you."

Lance hummed. "Must be similar technology, right? Maybe it has the same side effects."

Shiro swallowed thickly. "Do you think you two could tell us what happened? Not...all of it, if you don't want to. Though we will certainly listen, any or all of us, to whatever you want to say. But if you could at least give us the bare bones, that would be helpful."

Hunk tightened his arm around Lance's waist, and Lance leaned his head limply on Hunk's shoulder. He looked even more tired now. Pidge scooted closer to his side, feeling his warmth.

"The Malkordans wanted information about the lions," Hunk started the tale. "I don't remember it, but our best guess is that they questioned me about how the mechanics work. What they wanted from Lance was...different, though."

Lance drew in a breath, then spoke. "They didn't even ask me any questions. They didn't have to. They just wanted to...study me. My bond with Blue."

Pidge felt cold all over, remembering that ruined machine in the room with the water and blood. The chair with straps, the headset that had been ripped from its cords and flung across the room. She had thought that it had something to do with mind manipulation and electrical power, and it had been clear from the controls that the machine was powerful and damaging, with no attempt made to mitigate the danger. But she hadn't realized it had anything to do with the lion bond.

"It hurt you," she stated, because that fact was plainly obvious, and Lance seemed reluctant to say it. "Hurt you a lot. What they did to you...it amounted to torture, even if that wasn't their goal."

"Yeah." The word was soft, grateful. Lance appreciated the assist in getting that part out there. "The thing about getting shocked with electricity is that it...it doesn't dull eventually. It just keeps getting worse."

They were silent for a moment, taking this in. Lance raised his head from Hunk's shoulder and looked up at Keith, still in his cryo pod. "What they...what they did to Keith might have been even worse, though. There was...so much blood..."

"No," Coran said. His hand rested on Lance's shoulder and held him firmly. "You must not compare your experience to his. All three of you went through something horrible, unforgivable. The fact that Hunk cannot remember exactly what happened, the fact that your mistreatment was different than Keith's... That doesn't mitigate it. Not remotely. You are allowed to acknowledge your own suffering."

"More than that, it's necessary," Shiro murmured. "When you're ready, when you want to... We'll talk about it. Remember how you all staged an intervention for me when I wasn't doing well? It's the same thing. We will all help you and Hunk and Keith cope with what happened, but you have to let us in. I know it feels different when it's your own pain, believe me, I know, but the same things you said to me back then also apply to you."

Lance drew a shuddery breath and nodded against Hunk's shoulder. "Yeah, I know. It feels good to hear you say it, though."

Coran squeezed his shoulder, and Shiro ruffled his hair.

Pidge leaned her head into his side. "What happened when they tried to study the bond? Did something go wrong? On our end... That might have been about the time that Blue went crazy."

Lance's eyes widened, and he looked at Coran. "Blue went crazy?"

"She wanted to find you," Coran said. "It seemed that she could hear you, even though the distance was too great. She tried to scratch her way out of the hangar, and when she lost contact, she started pacing back and forth and wouldn't stop. Shiro and I made the decision to open the hangar doors and let her out, in case she could find you. She went straight to the city and started making passes. Then, suddenly, she seemed to hear you again, and she turned and flew straight to that base where they were keeping you. Shiro and the Malkordan military followed her, and... Yes. That's the short version of what happened from our perspective. So I'm presuming...the electricity they subjected you to affected the bond?"

Lance nodded. "Yeah. I could tell. Even through the pain, I could feel my mind...expanding. They were only trying to study the bond, map it, but they super-charged it too. Blue heard me, I could tell at the time, though I didn't realize... Um. But then I passed out. That must have been when she lost contact with me."

Hunk took up the narrative. "They brought him back to the cell after he passed out. He was unconscious, and his nose was bleeding and just… It wouldn't stop. It took me and Keith awhile to wake him up, and then he was really limp and weak. The electricity really did a number on him."

"And they did it again?" Coran asked. "The second time Blue heard you?"

Lance didn't respond immediately. Hunk grimaced and ground his teeth together. "Actually, that was Lance's choice."

Shiro hesitated. "I don't understand."

"We...escaped," Lance said slowly. "From the cell. While I was gone, Keith and Hunk had managed to get hold of a scrap of metal, and we shaped it into a tool. Then I...figured out how to disable the wrist cuffs."

Hunk shuddered. "Those cuffs were the worst. If the guards chose to activate them, they instantly adhered to the wall or floor. Super powerful electromagnets, I'm guessing." Pride infused his voice. "But Lance figured out how to break them."

"It wasn't that hard." Lance shrugged. "Okay, it took me a long time. Hunk could have done it faster. But his wrists were trapped on the floor, and they took Keith, so I was the only option. I'm just glad I figured it out."

Hunk held him tighter. "You were amazing, buddy. Don't downplay it."

Lance looked up at Keith again, then slumped into Hunk's side. "Yeah. But anyway. They brought Keith back and he was...like that. And we knew we had to get out. So, short version, I disabled all the cuffs, and we attacked the guards the next time they came for us. We managed to get out of the cell and down the hallway, but there were bars in the way, so we ducked into another room. It was the one with the machine they used on me."

Pidge began to understand what had happened. "So you...decided..."

"Yeah. We had to get out, and I knew Blue would hear me, so..." Lance fell silent.

Hunk cleared his throat. "Keith and I were not happy with that decision, let me make it clear. But also..." His breath came a little more ragged, and he braced his cheek against the side of Lance's head. "You were so brave, sweetheart. So strong. And I... I am grateful. I never wanted you to go through that, and I hated watching it happen, but you did save our lives. All of us. I can never thank you enough."

"Yeah. No problem." Lance let go of Hunk's shirt long enough to pat his knee. "I love you, big guy. Never doubt it."

"Never will."

Shiro sighed and touched Lance's head again, gently stroking through his messy locks with spread fingers. "Can you talk about what happened afterward? I saw some weird stuff, kiddo. Seems like the machine let you do more than contact Blue."

Pidge craned her head to look up into Lance's face. She had seen a lot of unexplained things on the way down into the base. The destroyed door, the bars broken to splinters, the water everywhere. At the time she had subconsciously associated it with Lance, the guardian of water, but her mind had been too busy to examine what it could mean, just set it aside as a puzzle to be solved later. What had happened down there?

Last thing Hunk and Lance said, they were trapped in a room, desperately trying to contact Blue to come rescue them. Between Blue taking off for the base and Shiro actually finding the boys had been at least twenty minutes of searching and fighting. Without resources, without weapons, all three on the edge of collapse, Hunk and Lance and Keith had held off what was surely a concentrated attempt to recapture them by fully armed soldiers. And then they had gotten past the Malkordans and made it all the way to the surface. How?

"Blue," Lance said softly. "That part is...um. Really fuzzy. But I know... I know I was able to speak to Blue, and she heard me and came running. I think I lost consciousness again, but... Then she was there. It was...amazing. Really amazing. Just an incredible, overwhelming flow of power. I'd never felt anything like it, and I didn't understand it, but I knew it was Blue. I trusted her."

Shiro opened his mouth to speak, maybe to ask a clarifying question, because none of this was making sense. But he closed his mouth again, and Hunk didn't volunteer his own version of events. He watched Lance with concern and...wonder? Yeah, that was wonder in his eyes.

It was Coran who spoke. "You felt her presence through the bond, we understand that part. Then what happened?"

Lance drew a slow breath. "We had to escape. And I knew I couldn't do it on my own. But Blue was there, and she was...it felt like an offer. So I let her... I don't know. Take over? Sort of. But not really. I was there too. It was my will, her power, sort of like what it always feels like when we pilot the lions. Every time I saw an obstacle we needed to break through, she showed me how, and we did it. I remember feeling warm and strong and...happy. Because she was with me, and I knew that everything would be okay. We broke down doors, I know that. We trapped enemies in ice. Blue could have killed them. She wanted to, for hurting me, but she chose not to because she didn't want to force me to see that."

Hunk swallowed thickly. "I wondered about that. It would have been easier. She, or you...the two of you had to maintain the ice, and you said that it took more energy than creating it. If Blue had just killed Corallis and the guards… But she didn't."

Lance nodded. Pidge was even more confused. "Wait...ice?" She grabbed Lance's hand hanging over her shoulder and squeezed it, suddenly overcome with something like terror. "You were creating _ice?"_

Lance frowned. "Yeah. I mean, how else were we supposed to escape? At the time it felt completely natural. I can't explain it. It just was...it was what we had to do, so we did it. It was the easiest thing in the world for Blue, and I wanted to escape, and she wanted to help me. It felt...perfect."

"Synchronicity," Shiro murmured.

"Yeah, that's a good word." Lance's voice was a bit absent. He didn't understand what had happened any better than the rest of them, despite having lived through it. But he accepted it anyway. It was who Lance was.

Pidge could not grasp this at all. She squeezed Lance's hand and dragged it down into her lap so she could wrap both of her hands around it and hold on tight. "You and Blue...shared your body?"

"I guess?" Lance shook his head. "That's one way of looking at it."

Pidge looked over Lance's shoulder to Coran. Coran's face was deeply thoughtful, but he didn't seem as freaked out as Pidge felt. "Do you have any idea what that was?"

"I...perhaps." Coran shook his head, eyes refocusing from whatever far-away place they'd gone to, and he gave her a warm smile through his mustache. "I would have to check the castle archives. I do seem to recall some similar incidents in the past, but they were rare."

"But Lance is okay?" Shiro asked, and the anxiety in his voice was unmistakable.

Coran sat up straigher, eyes sparking, and looked over at him. "Why, of course!" he said, instantly reassuring. He sounded sincere, though Pidge couldn't completely dismiss her suspicion that he was lying to make them feel better. Coran reached forward and ruffled Lance's hair strongly, making him chuckle and bend his head away to escape. "Lance, my boy, you did something quite extraordinary, that is certainly true. But all is well. I'm sure the cryo-replenisher has already cured any lingering effects."

"Yeah. And anyway, it's over now." Lance turned his head to smile down at Pidge, squeezing her palm wrapped around his. "It's okay. We escaped. Nothing else matters." He glanced at Keith again. "Except... Yeah. As soon as we get Keith out, we'll be good. That's the only thing that's missing now. Everything else is okay."

"Keith will be fine," Coran said confidently. "He just needs a while longer to finish healing. None of his wounds were terribly serious, though he lost a lot of blood. No organ damage, nothing like that. It's only because there were so many cuts that it's taking this long for him to heal."

Hunk reached over his free hand to pat Lance's chest. "We should get you cleaned up and dressed, and get some heartier food in you, too. Then we'll come back and see Keith when he gets out, and we'll all feel better."

Lance nodded. "Yeah, okay. Let's go."

By the time the pod was ready to release Keith, Allura was back, too. She shook her head distractedly when Shiro and Coran asked her how it had gone down on Malkord. Pidge caught something about "Forget an alliance, the question is if and when we should mete out _vengeance,"_ which was enough to tell Pidge that she was definitely right about sharing the footage with Allura and no one else.

Other than that, Allura mostly just muttered darkly about "bureaucrats" and "political nonsense." Coran and Shiro wisely left it be after that.

The cryo pod finally opened up, with a hiss of released air and a sense of chill in the air, and there he was. Keith's eyes opened reluctantly, slow and half-lidded, and he took one step out of the pod. He was greeted with a bear hug from Hunk on one side and Lance assaulting him with their favorite blanket on the other.

"Buddy!"

"You're back!"

"It's good to see you!"

Keith grunted in surprise, then went down, bowled over by their effusiveness. Lance and Hunk laughed and fell with him, controlling the motion so that all three of them ended up sprawled on the floor, half-covered with the blanket. Pidge couldn't stop grinning, and the others looked delighted and relieved, too.

"What..." Keith's voice was fuzzy and muffled. He reached up and grabbed the corner of the blanket covering his face and yanked it off. "What is happening..."

"We're happy you're alive!" Lance cried. He had wrapped both arms around Keith's chest and was nuzzling under his chin like a puppy. Hunk's arm was under Keith's head, cushioning him from the cold floor, and he reached over and patted Keith's face as if making sure all of his features were still in place.

"We have scones," Pidge said, holding out the plate Hunk had entrusted to her care.

Keith blinked up at her from the floor, slow and a bit confused. He turned his head to look at Hunk on his left side, then at Lance on his right. And he went limp with relief. His eyes closed and his limbs fell loose, and he lay there sandwiched between the yellow paladin and the blue paladin. He looked happy, though he wasn't smiling. And his hands were wrapped in Lance and Hunk's shirts.

"I'm glad you guys are alive, too," he said gruffly.

Hunk's eyes welled, and Lance made a muffled sound that was half "awww" and half "what the quiznak" and buried his face in Keith's chest. It was rather ridiculous and over-the-top, but Pidge couldn't stop smiling at it. Lance and Keith had gotten to be pretty good friends over the last year and a half or so since they'd ended up as part of a magic superweapon fighting an intergalactic empire, but there had always been a half-step of distance between them. It was somehow both touching and hilarious to see that it was suddenly gone, banished by less than twelve hours of shared captivity.

Shiro laughed moistly, and Pidge saw him swipe at his eyes. He was grinning uncontrollably, too. "Did the relationship between you three change in the last day?" he asked, voice warm and teasing.

"Yep," Lance said cheerfully. He let go of Keith with one hand so he could reach out and grip Hunk's shoulder. And if his knuckles were a little too white, holding a little too desperately, no one bothered to mention it. "Hunk and I are married now, and Keith is our beautiful baby."

The laughter was universal and uproarious. Keith's eyes popped open, face wry with chagrin. "But I'm older than you," he protested.

"Not by much," Hunk said comfortably.

"Doesn't matter," Lance said. "We've adopted you. It's official. Don't bother trying to escape our love. It's too late for you now."

"I don't want to _escape,"_ Keith said. "I just don't want to be a _baby."_

"It's a metaphor, dude," Hunk said, patting his face with one big paw.

"Nuh uh," Lance contradicted. "Completely non-metaphorical. Our baby now." He put his arm back around Keith and squeezed. "We will raise him well and teach him the ways of the world."

"Don't you at least have to get custody from the former guardians?" Shiro asked.

Lance looked over his shoulder at him, eyes narrowed. "Are you going to try to mess with this perfection? How dare you. We'll see you in court."

"Just sign him over," Hunk advised Shiro, smiling. "It will be easier for everyone involved."

"I still have scones," Pidge said, feeling that this was a good time to mention it again.

Keith made an interested noise, so Lance and Hunk sat up, dragging him with them. Lance let go of Keith long enough to arrange the blanket around all three, and Pidge, Shiro, Allura, and Coran sat on the floor with them, forming a close circle with the scones in the middle. Keith ate, and Shiro ruffled his hair, and Coran asked how he was feeling, and Allura smiled, soft and wide and relieved. It was so _good_ to have all three boys back with them, smiling and laughing and holding on to each other.

Pidge knew this wasn't the end of it. They still had a lot of clean-up to do on the planet, figuring what had happened, who had done it, and how team Voltron should respond. Whatever Allura decided to do, Pidge would back her all the way. It was fine as long as none of them ever had to step foot on the planet again, especially the three who had been kidnapped, tortured, and almost brainwashed.

Hunk and Keith and Lance were going to need time to heal. They were all probably going to have nightmares about this. Even Hunk, if he couldn't remember his own agony, was going to be haunted by images of what had been done to his friends. The three of them were going to end up sleeping in each other's rooms a lot for the forseeable future, Pidge knew that already. Maybe the team should just head it off at the pass and make a blanket fort in one of the lounges, like they had a few months ago when Shiro's PTSD had gotten really bad.

No matter what the future held, they would face it together. Sitting in this little circle, shoulder to shoulder with her teammates, her family, Pidge was sure of it. She smiled at her boys, glad to have them home, and they smiled back.

The End

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry I almost forgot to upload here!

Thank you again for all of the reviews and comments and support! I'm so glad you all enjoyed the story.

There is a possibility that there will be a sequel dealing with the aftermath of this. You know how much I looove writing aftermath. But if so, it will be a while in coming. I have several other projects I'm working on as well.

This is a Big Bang story, so there is art to go along with it! You can visit my tumblr at maychorian dot tumblr dot com and search the tag bchu to find it.


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